Story was written by Joy Lukachick, Joan Garrett, Adam Crisp and Andy Johns.
There was no standing room on the stairs or in the hallway as people rushed from the street into the courthouse.
Word had spread. The verdict was in.
Those who couldn't get a front-row seat to hear the ruling stood outside the courtroom. They tapped their feet and clenched their jaws with nervous excitement. Several women gripped one another's hands, mumbled prayers and dabbed their tearing eyes with napkins.
They strained toward the door to hear what the bailiff was saying. Someone heard the words.
"Not guilty. Not guilty. First count. Not guilty," one woman yelled. In the end, not guilty on all 22 counts against her.
The whole room erupted in screaming. Tearfully, they hugged. They jumped up and down. They stretched their arms up to the ceiling.
"Thank you Jesus," someone said, opening their eyes from praying.
Tonya Craft, surrounded by deputies, her lawyers and family, burst out of the courtroom doors.
After spending nearly half a million dollars in her defense and watching as her private life was exposed on national news shows for more than a month, the former kindergarten teacher who had been accused of molesting three girls was now free.
People cheered as she rushed past, her face swollen and red from crying.
"This is the best day in two years," said Kim Walker, a longtime friend and supporter of Ms. Craft.
As Ms. Craft left the courtroom, the families of the girls who had accused her were ushered through a back door and refused to respond to questions.
Some who attended court with family members of the accusers said the parents wondered what they would tell the three girls who said they were molested.
"They have to live with the fact that the adult world says they were lying," said Miriam Boyd, a friend of the mother of one of the girls.
The prosecutors, rushed by onlookers, refused to comment on the outcome of the case they had laid out for nearly a month and prepared for two years. As questions flew at him, Catoosa County Assistant District Attorney Len Gregor held a notebook up to cover his face.
Weary jurors were loaded immediately on buses, while deputies, lining the streets, held back the crowd. Driven in a bus to the Catoosa County Sheriff's Office, where their cars were waiting, jurors gathered to give a statement to Chattanooga Times Free Press reporters.
"Come here. Come here," the jury foreman, who has not been named by the court, said to the other jurors. "We're going to present a united front."
Sheriffs deputies cut him off, saying that Sheriff Phil Summers had barred media from the sheriff's complex.
"The verdict speaks for itself," the jury foreman said after telling jurors to disperse and instructing them to comply with the deputies.
"(This) was not a pleasure," another juror said as he walked to his car.
News of the verdict spread fast. In Chickamauga, where Ms. Craft had lived, taught and raised her family, many people were sure she was innocent when the trial began, but surprised she was acquitted.
On Tuesday evening, lifelong Chickamauga residents Tammie Bowers and Kelly Stone discussed the jurors' decision. They both agreed that, despite the verdict, life would never be the same for Ms. Craft or the girls who had accused her.
"She's ruined," Ms. Stone said.
"Her life is damaged because of it," Ms. Bowers added. "I don't think people should shun her or not hire her -- that's not right."
"It'll happen," Ms. Stone interjected.
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