Four Perry County Jurors Interviewed for CBS Special on Coleman Case

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Kim Ferrari of Du Quoin was one of the 12 Perry County residents who sat on the jury for two weeks last May that convicted Christopher Coleman of murdering his wife and two sons in their Columbia, Ill. home in May 2009.

The hour and 15 minute shuttle ride every day was "tedious" and the endless hours of hearing testimony and deliberating "painful," she remembers.

This Saturday, May 5 at 9 p.m. CDT the local CBS affiliate KFVS-TV Channel 12 will air a special documentary called "The Writing on the Wall: The Christopher Coleman Case."

Kim and three other jurors from Perry County who convicted Coleman were interviewed for three hours in January for this "48 Hours/Mystery" special. Segments of those interviews will be shown on air.

"They (CBS) took four of us to St. Louis for the interviews," Kim said. She has not seen the show.

She says memories of the long shuttle rides, being sequestered with jurors, the testimony and verdict that collectively took two and a half weeks to get through will remain with her always.

Her life was completely put on hold during the ordeal.

Coleman was convicted of strangling his wife and two sons as part of a plan to start a new life with his mistress without sacrificing his job as bodyguard to televangelist Joyce Meyer.

Ferrari and the other jurors delivered their verdict at 7:35 p.m. May 5.

The decision came from a jury of 10 women and two men who had stretched their deliberations into about 15 hours over two days.

The trial featured a lurid combination of sex, religion and violence woven together into a circumstantial case in which Coleman was not identified as the killer by physical evidence or any witness.

Prosecutors alleged that Coleman wanted to leave his wife, Sheri, 31, to marry her onetime best friend, Tara Lintz, of Largo, Fla., with whom he had an affair. But exposing his adultery, officials said, would have jeopardized his $100,000-a-year job as bodyguard for Meyer, whose ministry is based in Fenton.

Police found spray-painted threats on the wall of the Coleman home when they discovered the bodies. Thus, the 48 Hours/Mystery episode title "The Handwriting on the Wall."

Police later found that the paint used by the killer was the same brand and color as a can Coleman bought months before.

Christopher Coleman grew up in Chester.