The Jury Makes A Decision
The jury also heard testimony from Jean Adair's co-worker, Carolyn Moore. "(Jean Adair) said that she and Dr. Shapiro wanted to be together and that he wanted to divorce his wife, and then she said, 'Now if I can only get rid of Robert,'" Moore told the court.
Outside the court, Moore had more to say. "I think (Adair) wanted to be with someone who had money," Moore said to reporters. "That was her main motivator in life. Money." Moore also said that Jean Adair had had several other affairs. This testimony was not heard in court, because the judge ruled that it was hearsay.
Jean Adair says that her marriage was nevertheless strong.
According to Moore - who thinks that her co-worker is capable of murder - Adair told her that she had several times deliberately injured herself on the job. This testimony was also barred. Jean Adair had frequent claims of medical disability and even had received $400,000 for her knee injury.
"It's clearly within her character to fake an injury, especially if there's what we call secondary gain, and that secondary gain is money," says Dr. Harold Cohen, who ran the clinic where Jean Adair worked.
And according to Robert Adair's mother, Margarita, her son had decided to divorce Jean, and take the children to Las Vegas, where Margarita lives. Jean Adair denies this and says that those who accuse her are simply jealous.
But the prosecution's case runs into problems beyond the confusion over Jean Adair's alleged phone call to Dr. Shapiro: After the crime, Jean Adair did not have blood on her. Her lawyer says this shows that she is innocent.
The prosecution, however, contended that Jean Adair swung the bat in such a way that the blood sprayed away from her. The prosecutor brought an expert witness to testify about the direction of the blood. But on the stand that witness said that he would expect to find blood on the person wielding the bat - exactly the opposite of what the prosecutor expected.
After three weeks of testimony, both sides rested and the jury began deliberations. Three days later, on Oct. 18, 1999, the jury acquitted Adair. Foreman Joe Flanagan said that the jury decided that there was reasonable doubt that Adair had killed her husband.
"I can't imagine in my wildest dreams that this woman would be acquitted," Mindy Shapiro says.
Robert Adair's family was crushed by the acquittal. "I'm very surprised," says Robert's sister Simone. "I know in my heart that she killed Robert."
Asked afterward if she planned to celebrate, Jean. Adair says she wouldn't. "I don't feel I can really celebrate," she says. "The people that did this to my husband are still out there, and not until they are behind bars and charged with this murder will I be happy."
"She's taking a line from O.J. Simpson," says the prosecutor, Goldstein. "We had the right person."
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