9-year-old's killer gets death sentence. (How low can you go?) (1 Viewer)

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Lucky13

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Aug 21, 2006
In my castle....
By MITCH STACY, Associated Press Writer
39 minutes ago



INVERNESS, Fla. - John Evander Couey looked straight ahead as a judge told him he should be executed for crimes that led to new laws in many states cracking down on convicted sex offenders. The 49-year-old convicted sex offender was sentenced to death Friday for kidnapping 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, raping her and burying her alive in his yard.

Sheriff's deputies hustled the handcuffed inmate out of the crowded courtroom.

The girl's father, Mark Lunsford, teared up as he listened to Circuit Judge Ric Howard read a detailed history of the case for nearly an hour. He hugged relatives after the sentence was read.

Outside court, Lunsford had a message for Couey: "Skip all these appeals. Take your punishment. Stand up and be a man."

The jury that convicted Couey in March recommended 10-2 that he die for his crimes, but the decision was left to Howard.

An attorney for Couey, 49, had argued that he couldn't legally be executed because he is mentally retarded, but Howard brushed aside that claim in a strongly worded ruling earlier this month. Mentally retarded people cannot be executed under a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The jury convicted Couey of taking the girl in February 2005 from her bedroom to his nearby trailer, sparking a massive search. The third-grader's body was found about three weeks after she disappeared in a grave in Couey's yard, about 150 yards from her own home.

Couey, already a convicted sex offender when he committed the crime, was arrested in Georgia and confessed to the killing. That confession was thrown out as evidence because Couey did not have a lawyer present.

Despite the confession being tossed, Couey incriminated himself other times. Jail guards and investigators testified that he repeatedly admitted details of the slaying after his arrest, insisting that he hadn't meant to kill the third-grader but panicked during an intense, nationally publicized police search.

Prosecutors also had overwhelming physical evidence, including DNA from the girl's blood and Couey's semen on a mattress in his room as well as her fingerprints in a closet where investigators said she was hidden.

Howard recounted the evidence in detail, including Couey wrapping her in two garbage bags, putting her alive into a hole then piling a foot of dirt on top of her.

"His actions crushed the very breath and life out of Jessica Marie Lunsford," Howard said.
 
One thing that caught my attention to this case when it unfolded a few years ago, was the ineptness of the police.

They searched his property without a warrant.

They questioned him without reading him his rights.

Good thing there was other evidence that convicted him or he could have walked.

That said, I think he didnt deserve the death penalty, just a regular sentence. That way he would be put into the general population and the other inmate would kill him long before the state of Florida could.
 
an elephant Chris ? was thinking more the likes of a badger but ........

well because if this guy is retarded this may take literally years. Like about 15 or if he dies naturally first.

it's these type of pisses on fences that concerns me about my three young grand-daughters
 
Put the **** in mainstream and let the cons with kids look after him.
A quick death isn't good enough for this animal.
 
Being a father of a 20 month old girl, nothing, and I mean nothing, could be painful or heinous enough of a punishment for this dirtbag. Anyone who perpetrates a violent crime against a child deserves severe punishment.
 
That bastard is going to hell and too bad it won't suffer enough....there is a code among the criminals in the jails here but I think is the same all over the world...as soon as a rapist is brought in it has "special treatment" but one way or another they all end up dead...
 
I'm usually against the death penalty but I would shoot this guy myself.

I have no time for such filth. They deserve to be destroyed. No excuses, no pity.
 
I saw clips on the news of him hearing the death sentence. That S.O.B.
didn't bat an eye ! He might actually be executed..... in ten or so years.

Charles
 

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