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Peterson has a new pen pal -- a juror

Juror Richelle Nice, seen here in February 2005, says she's exchanged letters with Scott Peterson.

• Jurors: Evidence 'spoke for itself'

• Foreman: Justice done

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EAST PALO ALTO, California (AP) -- A juror who sent Scott Peterson to death row says she's been corresponding for nearly a year with the former fertilizer salesman convicted in the murder of his pregnant wife.

Richelle Nice told People magazine that she and Peterson have exchanged about two dozen letters since August.

Nice said she wrote the first letter as an exercise suggested by her therapist but didn't intend to mail it. She said she wanted to tell Peterson how the seven-month trial turned her life upside down. She also wanted to know why he killed his wife, Laci.

Then she decided to mail it. About a month later, she got a response.

"I started shaking and crying and hyperventilating," the 36-year-old told the magazine in an issue hitting newsstands Friday. "I didn't know what to do. I wondered, `Do I call the police? Do I even want to open it?"'

Nice said she was amazed at the tone of the letter. She said Peterson has been polite and charming, often showering her with compliments. He even commented on her choice of a breast cancer awareness stamp.

Peterson also seems more concerned about how the trial affected her than himself, she said.

"He talked a lot about those autopsy photos and how hard that must have been for the jurors to see," Nice said.

He also repeatedly denied killing his wife, she said.

In December, Nice suffered a breakdown and was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward, she said. The mother of four boys now lives with her own mother.

"I remember thinking, `Dude, you had all the resources in the world, and you can't hold it together any better than that when the chips are down,"' she said. "`When life begins to get a little uncomfortable for you, what do you do? You commit murder?' What a sorry cop-out."