THE KING CASE AFTERMATH : Juror Says She Held Out for a Conviction : King case: The only Latina on the panel says she fasted and prayed in effort to sway others to find Officer Powell guilty.

As her eyes welled with tears, Virginia Loya slowly explained how she prayed, fasted and even wept to sway her fellow jurors in the Rodney G. King beating trial to reach at least one guilty verdict.

“I tried as hard as I could,” said the former juror, standing on the porch of her home near Ventura. “God is my witness. I even went as far as not eating for as long as a day and a half. I was fasting and praying and asking God to help me.”

But in the end, Loya, a devout Christian and the only Latina on the jury, said she was able only to help persuade three of the 12 jurors to join her for an assault conviction against Officer Laurence M. Powell. A mistrial was declared on the one count against Powell, while the jury returned not-guilty verdicts on all the other charges against the four officers.

“I’m sorry some people couldn’t see what was wrong,” she said, her voice low and shaky. “I’m sorry some people just didn’t try to open their eyes. I just wish it would have come out differently.”

Loya, 40, said the trial and the deadly riot that followed the April 29 verdicts have changed her life completely. She said that she has been unable to sleep or eat and that she worries about the safety of her three children.

Loya has taken time off from her job as a housekeeper at a hospital, changed her phone number and stopped answering the door--as have many of the other jurors in the King beating case.

Juror Christopher C. Morgan of Simi Valley also changed his phone number and has secured his front door with black iron gates after receiving death threats.

One caller told Morgan that he was responsible for the deaths during the riots in Los Angeles ignited by the verdicts. He quoted the caller as saying, “There’s blood on your hands. You’re dead.”

His wife, Marie, described the family’s life as a living hell. “We’re not a normal family anymore. People picked for juries are supposed to be normal.”

At the house of a female Camarillo juror, a man spoke to a reporter through a closed door, saying, “We’re still not giving any interviews.” He said the household had received “hate phone calls,” but had not taken any flak from neighbors over the verdicts.

On Wednesday, Loya emerged briefly from her home--located in a working-class neighborhood stained with gang graffiti--to receive a bouquet of flowers sent by a loved one.

She said she is haunted by the televised images of riots, burnings and additional beatings that she has seen over the past week.

“I feel very, very sad,” she said.

She said she wanted it known that someone on the jury had argued for a conviction. If she had another chance, Loya said, she would hold out longer for the conviction against Powell.

“I saw the swings,” she said, who asked repeatedly during deliberations to review the videotape showing the officers beating King. “(Powell) didn’t even take time to look at what he was doing. To me, it was out of control.”

But as the jury reviewed the tape, Loya said she remembered at one point another juror watching the video said: “There, (King) deserved it.”

“I remember saying that was a poor choice of words,” she said. “No one deserves to be beaten.”

Other jurors made her defend her position, over and over again. She said the pressure was intense. “We got so emotional, we had to take a break at one time.”

Loya said she had questions about the behavior of Sgt. Stacey Koon, who was in charge at the beating scene. But she had trouble believing beyond a reasonable doubt that the police officer had committed a crime.

She said the jury members kind of made fun of her for wanting to see the videotape repeatedly.

“They were tired of watching,” Loya said. “To me the video was the only thing I had to hang on to. I wanted to see it as much as I could.”

She thinks the repetition helped three other jurors come to her side. “I knew God had answered me.”

Another male juror who asked not to be identified said he did not believe that the holdouts on the jury were pressured into voting for acquittal. “The foreperson, she gave them more than ample opportunity, even saying, ‘Have you considered this? Have we looked at every aspect of this? Are you satisfied?’ ”

Asked if jurors teased Loya for asking to see the videotape again, he said, “No way. If it was, it certainly wasn’t within my earshot.”

Loya declined to speculate on whether race had something to do with the conclusion reached by the jury, which had 10 whites, one Asian-American and Loya.

But she said she wondered why a jury of almost all whites was picked to hear the case. “I don’t know how they chose those people,” she said.

But despite the verdicts, Loya said she would like to tell Rodney G. King to “go forward.”

“Someday, people will see,” she said. “People will open their eyes.”

Times staff writer Mack Reed contributed to this story.