In the 25 years John Byrd worked for Rite Aid, he did everything from picking lipstick to loading tractor trailers. At times he worked in a garage and drove trucks. All throughout, he was a member of the Teamsters union.
Prior to that, Byrd spent nine years working on an assembly line for Volkswagen America.
One might think that a guy with that kind of background would be a shoo-in for convicting former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, a man who has been highly critical of unions.
But the white-haired and pony-tailed longtime union member was actually one of the holdout jurors who were uncomfortable with convicting Blankenship on all counts.
From the moment that he began serving on the jury, Byrd said he did not have any preconceived notions about Blankenship.
"I went in it as thinking the man [Blankenship] is innocent until proven guilty," Byrd, 64, said in an interview with the Gazette-Mail last week.
Conventional wisdom would say the idea of having a union member sit on a jury that would ultimately decide the fate of Blankenship, who has frequently combated with unions, including United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts, would be risky. But Byrd did not find himself in the same mindset as other jurors, at least when the trial began.
"Right off the bat, there were people in there that said he was guilty," he explained.
Throughout the trial, Byrd frequently wore a navy blue jacket emblazoned with a Teamsters Local 175 logo on the back. At times, he wore other union garb, including a shirt with a firefighters union logo. Despite his ties, Byrd is hardly a union sympathizer.
"Unions aren't good for everybody," he said. "If I ran a company I wouldn't want a union either. I'd want to have control."
At times during the trial, Byrd said he wondered if the Upper Big Branch disaster could have been prevented if it had been a union mine. But that barely played a role for him throughout the deliberation process.
Neither did the 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, which killed 29 miners. While he had sympathy for the loved ones of the miners, who frequently were found in the first row of U.S. District Judge Irene Berger's courtroom during Blankenship's two-month trial, Byrd said, "I had to put that out of my mind."
Instead, Byrd said he focused on what was found in more than 500 exhibits used during the trial and hours worth of testimony from the 27 witnesses who testified. The longtime teamster said he was especially intrigued when former Performance Coal Co. President Chris Blanchard denied being a part of a conspiracy to willfully violate mine safety standards.
When jurors were finally able to discuss Blanchard's testimony during their deliberations - more than two weeks after Blanchard left the witness stand - Byrd said the jury consulted Berger's instruction, which included a definition of conspiracy.
"It is a strange word," Byrd said. "It sounds like you have to have two people involved."
In her charge to the jury, Berger described a criminal conspiracy as "an agreement or a mutual understanding knowingly made or knowingly entered into by at least two people to violate the law by some joint or common plan or course of action."
Although some jurors, including Byrd, were initially hesitant to find Blankenship guilty of being involved in a conspiracy, they reached a conclusion after Berger gave jurors a so-called "Allen charge," an instruction used to encourage a deadlocked jury to continue deliberations, on Dec. 1.
Byrd said after the Allen charge, he turned to his fellow jurors to find out how many people were willing to find him guilty of all three charges.
While some jurors were comfortable with such a move, Byrd was among those in the minority.
"I said there's still a reasonable doubt," Byrd explained.
"It was a compromise in a way," he said of the split verdict that found Blankenship guilty of one count of conspiring to violate mine safety standards and not guilty of two other charges.
Byrd said his indecision about counts two and three in the federal government's indictment came down to the fact that he believed some of the evidence used during the trial indicated Blankenship made some efforts to improve the company's safety.
"I think Don Blankenship covered his bases," Byrd said, pointing to comments the former Massey executive made about mine safety in both emails and audio recordings that were used as exhibits during the trial.
"That put the reasonable doubt in my book," he said, adding that although Blankenship may have been a "rich, arrogant" man, that didn't necessarily mean he was guilty.
Byrd is the third person in the 12-member jury to discuss the jury's deliberation process.
In the aftermath of the jury's Dec. 3 verdict, Bill Rose and jury foreperson Pam Carte have shared their experiences with several media outlets.
While some of Rose and Carte's descriptions about the jury's deliberations have been similar, the two have disagreed in some ways.
Rose has largely depicted the jury "like family" and denied any fighting. Carte said there was "yelling and screaming" during the initial days of deliberations.
On Nov. 30, the jury's first day back after a five-day layoff around Thanksgiving, Berger told jurors, "In your deliberation room, every juror should be able to express an opinion if he or she desires to do so. You should be respectful of your fellow jurors and you should all treat each other with courtesy."
Although it is unclear why Berger issued the instruction, Byrd tells a story that falls somewhere in between what Carte and Rose have said.
"I think we got along," he said of the jury. "We still argued, but that's what we're there for. We tried to work it out as best as we could."
Byrd said several jurors had a reasonable doubt over Blankenship's guilt.
"A lot more than what they've said," he said without further explanation.
Byrd also confirmed something that both Carte and Rose had previously said - that jurors weren't aware of the potential penalty associated with each charge that Blankenship faced.
"Maybe it would've been different if we knew what the penalty was," Byrd said.
Aside from a handful of interviews with Carte, Rose and now Byrd, little remains known about the four men and eight women who decided Blankenship's fate.
Jury selection, which began Oct. 1, took place in private, without the presence of the news media and the public. Berger denied a request from the Gazette-Mail and West Virginia Public Broadcasting that the jury selection process be open to the public and the news media.
The judge also did not respond to a request from the newspaper to obtain transcripts of the voir dire process.
Prior to the trial's start, Berger refused to move the trial out of Charleston. According to court records, 187 out 300 people returned jury questionnaires. Among the questionnaires returned, 70 people indicated some type of bias either for the United States or Blankenship. A total of 87 potential jurors were excused for cause.
Berger revealed more about the jury in a memorandum order filed earlier this week.
"None of the seated jurors had more than a passing familiarity with the Defendant, the facts giving rise to the case, or the events at Upper Big Branch. Nor did any of these jurors reveal any signs of potential bias or prejudice," the judge wrote.
In addition to filing the memorandum order, Berger also denied a motion previously filed by The Associated Press in an attempt to obtain the names and addresses of the jurors.
As a result of the jury's verdict, Blankenship could face up to one year in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 6.
Reach Joel Ebert at joel.ebert@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4843 or follow @joelebert29 on Twitter.