BANGOR — Some jurors who convicted two men for murder and arson in the violent deaths of three people in August 2012 feel concerned for their safety, according to three who spoke with the Bangor Daily News.

“Drugs are involved, and when drugs are involved anything could happen,” said one juror, a woman, hours after the verdicts were delivered in the month-long trial. “I don’t think anything would happen, but you never know.”

“During deliberations the thought [of danger] popped in my head a few times and I always checked to make sure I wasn’t being followed when driving home,” another female juror said.

The Bangor Daily News is not naming the jurors because of their concerns about their safety.

The jury deliberated nearly 45 hours over five days. Nicholas Sexton, 33, of Warwick, Rhode Island, was found guilty of the murder of Nicolle A. Lugdon, 24, of Eddington, but the jury could not reach a verdict on the murder charges in the deaths of Daniel Borders, 26, of Hermon, and Lucas Tuscano, 28, of Bradford.

Randall Daluz, 36, of Brockton, Massachusetts, was found guilty on all three counts of murder amid what authorities described as a drug deal gone bad. Both men also were convicted of arson for burning a car that contained the victims’ bodies.

During the third day of jury deliberations, Jeffrey Toothaker, Sexton’s defense attorney, said the process was lengthy because one juror disagreed with the rest of the panel.

One juror confirmed Toothaker’s account but offered few details about the deliberations and the nature of the disagreement.

“We talked for days about the same thing with the same people,” she said. “Everybody has the right to make their own decision. Every individual juror’s vote had the same weight.”

Another juror, a man, told the Bangor Daily News: “You can’t always get 12 people to agree.”

All three jurors said the complexity of the case — with two defendants facing a total of eight different criminal charges — also added to the length of deliberations.

“If you look at the charges … you can probably figure out what took so long,” the male juror said.

“The complexity of this case with so many possible theories really tangled us up,” another juror said. “Even with the evidence, it still led us in different directions with our thinking. There were many issues that we were forced to try to work through.”

She said being a juror in two trials taking place at the same time was “an extremely daunting task.”

By the end of the fifth day of deliberations, one juror said, “we were getting sick of each other.”

“It was very stressful for all of us,” she said. “We tried. We couldn’t have gone on any longer. It wasn’t an easy decision to send those two men to jail — they have families, too. We did the best we could.”

“This has to be one of the hardest things I have ever been asked to do,” the other female juror said. “This was a life-altering event and something I am struggling to deal with.”

Now, the first female juror said she and the others are being cautious.

“Right now it’s so raw to us, and we don’t want anything to go wrong [with the upcoming sentencing],” she said.

No date for the sentencing has been scheduled.

One of the three jurors said she voted to convict both men on all four charges against them.

She added, “I hope they never get out of prison — ever.”

Copy the Story Link