Did he kill her? I think he did: juror

Tempers flared and voices were raised, with certain jurors leaning on others to convict — and quickly.

One of the dozen jurors who convicted Chanel Lewis of murdering a Howard Beach jogger recounted the contentious scene inside the jury room once the panel began its April 1 deliberations, a short but intense debate preceding a unanimous conclusion reached in just five hours.

“I’m not trying to be racist, but the white folks were running the show in that room,” said the juror, speaking last week with the Daily News on condition of anonymity. “The two women of color were very silent throughout the whole thing.”

This juror told The News that a blond white juror snapped at him when he asked to rewatch Lewis’ taped confession, a key piece of evidence that defense attorneys alleged was coerced from their client by police.

“Yeah, but the actual footage is like two to four hours long,” she told him. “Are we actually going to watch all that?”

“And I was like, ‘Well, do you really wanna deal with maybe sending an innocent person to jail?’ ” he responded. “And then she started screaming at me.”

But the juror never alleged there was any racial element to the verdict, and acknowledged that he believes — as did his fellow jurors — that Lewis was the killer. He wasn’t as sure about their decision to convict the 22-year-old defendant of sexual assault.

“So did he kill her? Yes, I think he did,” the juro r said. “Did he sexually assault her? That’s a whole ‘nother issue. … There was just not enough evidence.”

The juror said he was swayed to a guilty plea on the sexual assault by his peers on the panel.

Five fellow jurors, all white, “were like, ‘Come on, let’s do it, he did it,’ ” he said. “Very up in arms, huffing and puffing, ‘We know he did this.’ ”

Four of the jurors were women who were “literally screaming in your face” for disagreeing with their opinion, he added.