Early on, court administrators had realized that the ferry ride to Friday Harbor and back to the home islands of jurors could very well be fraught with problems. The jurors were relegated to a particular section of the ferry decks, marked by tape, where they could not overhear comments by other passengers. At times, they felt almost ostracized. Since they were not segregated, jurors could go to lunch on their own, and they did, in pairs or small groups. Two female jurors were in a restaurant when they heard a county politician from across the room as he commented loudly about trial testimony. “We walked over and introduced ourselves as jurors,” one of the women said, “and asked him to speak more softly. He was annoyed, but at least he lowered his voice so we couldn’t hear his opinions.” Four weeks after Ruth’s trial began, the prosecution was winding down. Earlier, the jury had heard Ray Clever, Greg Doss, and Joe Caputo describe the long search of 1982. What they found meshed with Paul Myers’s statement about what he had overheard as he sipped whiskey in the Neslunds’ sunroom.
