Inside Anna Nicole Smith's Suit

June 18, 2001 -- Jurors who dashed Anna Nicole Smith's hopes of collecting half her late husband's fortune say they felt the voluptuous blonde "wasn't even decent" to the 90-year-old man after they married.

Speaking publicly for the first time, the jurors tell ABC's 20/20 Downtown why they decided to rule against the former stripper and Playboy Playmate in her battle for J. Howard Marshall II's estate, valued at anywhere from $100 million to $1.6 billion.

Smith was not mentioned in the oil tycoon's will. His sole heir, according to that document, was his son, E. Pierce Marshall, 61.

The 32-year-old model filed suit in Houston, claiming her husband promised her half of everything.

"He just always promised that once we were married, half of everything is mine," Smith told ABCNEWS in a previous interview.

Her 63-year-old stepson, J. Howard Marshall III, who had been disinherited, also sued for a share.

After a nearly six-month trial that often resembled a soap opera, the jurors — among whom were a school bus driver, a cashier, an airline worker, a chemical plant operator, a housewife and a schoolteacher — ruled against Smith. They said E. Pierce Marshall was the sole heir.

The Price of a 14-Month Marriage

During her testimony, Smith insisted she and her elderly husband truly loved each other.

"I am not a gold digger," she said. "I wanted to marry him because he loved me and he took care of me."

The jurors say they believed J. Howard Marshall had true affection for Smith. "We never argued that he called her the light of his life," says one juror.

"She was a stripper and he put her in better clothes and bought her everything she wanted," says another juror. "He did everything for her … he really wanted her."

And because her husband did want his wife to be taken care of, the jurors say, they felt the approximately $8 million she got during her 14-month marriage should suffice.

Devoted or Callous Wife?

While Rusty Hardin, Pierce's lawyer, painted J. Howard as a brusque but kind-hearted gentleman, jurors say they began to resent the way they believed Smith had treated him.

"Once she married him, then she figured she was going to get half of whatever he had so she wasn't even decent to him," says one juror.

"When J. Howard would fly out of California, she'd hardly have the time to say hello," says another.

But Smith maintained she was a devoted wife. "I called every day checking on my husband," she testified.

And Smith said she needed a large income. "It's very expensive to be me," she said.

Jurors say it took approximately "five seconds" to reach their conclusion that her husband's fortune should go to his younger son, not Smith.

"I think it was a whole show of her acting like the dumb blonde because people expected her to be a dumb blonde," says a juror.

"She was a lot smarter than what she pretended to be," says another. "I think she really was just a pretty good actress up on the stand."

Though Smith lost this battle, a California judge awarded her $475 million in a separate bankruptcy trial last winter, saying J. Howard Marshall had in fact promised Smith half of everything if she would marry him.

That decision, however, has been set aside and will be reviewed by a federal district court.