GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — For the first time, jurors are talking about the case of a man who killed his wife and hid her body in the woods near his house.
Jurors spent days listening to the evidence against Matthew Leili.
Prosecutors said Leili killed his wife, Nique, and dumped her body in the woods.
One of the jurors told Channel 2 Action News that in the first vote of the jury, it was already 11-1. Within a couple of hours, the guilty verdict was unanimous.
The twists and turns in the murder mystery on a special 20/20 at 10 p.m. followed by the Channel 2 Action News Nightbeat at 11.
Jury foreman David Smith said he voted guilty because he didn’t see how anyone else could have done it.
“It basically came down to the lack of evidence was the smoking gun, because there’s only one person that could have gotten rid of all the evidence, and it all pointed to the defendant," he said.
During the trial, prosecutors pointed to the fact that while Matt Leili had 21 surveillance cameras around his house, all the recordings had been erased for the hours surrounding Nique’s disappearance.
“Most of us, we were kind of sitting there thinking, ‘OK, there’s no way that an innocent man would go through all of this if he wasn’t hiding something, right?” juror Kim Muenston said.
[READ: Teenage daughters defend father accused of killing mother]
Jurors also listened to hours of recordings of Matt and Nique Leili fighting.
Matt Leili’s attorney doesn’t believe the state proved its case.
“I think the reason is pure and simple. He didn’t do it,” Tom Clegg said.
The jurors will be profiled in an hour-long 20/20 broadcast on Channel 2.
WSBTV
