The two buzzes in the courtroom meant the jury had reached a verdict.
It also meant that the fourth trial of Jhavaun McCottrell would be the last. St. Louis Circuit Judge Philip D. Heagney recognized the significance of the buzzes – the jury’s way, by pressing a button, of alerting the courtroom that it was done – on Thursday afternoon.
“I know for everyone involved, this has been a long, long wait,” Heagney told the attorneys, victims, family and defendant who had piled into the room. “We will have closure, whatever the jury’s verdict is.”
After 4½ years of trials, a St. Louis jury convicted McCottrell, 25, of St. Louis, of first-degree robbery and armed criminal action.
Four times, Pierce Daniel Smith, 49, and Sarah MacDougal, 48, pointed their fingers at McCottrell and swore he robbed them at gunpoint near the Missouri Botanical Garden in March 2004.
And four times McCottrell took the stand and swore he didn’t rob anyone.
The three earlier juries could not reach a decision, which is believed to be a record in the city. This jury believed the victims.
“I’m relieved,” Smith said. “I’m not gleeful or even particularly happy. I’m sorry a young man ruined his life by the choices he made.”
McCottrell, who had been held in jail the whole time, just sat shaking his head. His mother collapsed and had to be carried by a friend and a sheriff’s deputy from the room.
Maybe it was the fresh lawyers’ faces at both the prosecution and defense tables that tipped the scale. Or the polished testimony of witnesses who have told their stories over and over.
This time, the jury took only about two hours to reach a unanimous decision.
“My God, it’s over,” MacDougal whispered before she left the courtroom.
“My main feeling is relief. But part of me also feels badly that he’s going to prison. But the guy robbed me and he is being punished for what he did.”
The testimony was mostly the same as the other three trials. But prosecutors added a new name and charge this time.
Kenneth Gantsch told the jury that he had noticed McCottrell’s picture with a Post-Dispatch story last year about the repeated trials, and called the prosecutor.
“That’s the guy who robbed me,” Gantsch testified.
He said an armed robber pushed a pistol against his forehead and demanded money on Gantsch’s front porch in the Shaw neighborhood in 2002.
Gantsch told the jury it was dark that night and he only saw the robber’s face for a few seconds. His testimony did not convince the jurors. They found McCottrell not guilty of robbing Gantsch.
Smith and MacDougal had a much better view of their robber.
They were nose-to-nose with him for nearly five minutes while the gunman dug through their pockets on March 6, 2004.
According to their testimony, Smith and MacDougal were walking along Tower Grove Avenue and Flora Street that day when a stranger ran toward them with his hands tucked inside a long black leather coat.
“What’s in your pocket?” was the only thing the robber said as he jammed the pistol’s barrel into Smith’s gut. He took Smith’s wallet and cash then moved to MacDougal, taking her cell phone.
Both MacDougal and Smith said they carefully studied the gunman’s face.
When a passing minivan startled the gunman, he told the couple “walk away now.”
Forty-one days later, the couple was driving along Shenandoah Avenue – just a block and a half from MacDougal’s home – when they noticed a man on the front steps of a house.
“That’s the guy who robbed us,” MacDougal remembers telling her friend.
They circled the block several times and called police. Officers arrested McCottrell.
McCottrell was convicted Thursday of two counts each of first-degree robbery and armed criminal action. He faces up to life in prison.
Smith said the verdict Thursday brings him some comfort when he thinks about other potential victims.
“I’m not happy to send him to the penitentiary,” Smith said. “At the same time, I’m pleased that he’s not robbing anyone else.”
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