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The defendant is a confessed serial killer and was convicted by a jury for several offenses including one count of first degree murder for intentionally causing the death of three women in separate criminal transactions that were committed in a similar fashion.
The people filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty and because of this a separate sentencing proceeding followed the jury case. The jury in the sentencing court determined unanimously that the defendant should be executed. The defendant appealed to this court.
Case Discussion
The death sentence is not currently at issue in this case. The defendant contends and the People do not dispute, that the sentence for death be set aside.
The issue before the court is the numerous grounds being raised by the defendant to have his convictions reversed.
Case Background
At around eight in the morning on the seventh of December, an employee of the Suffolk County Department of Public Works was travelling on Long Island Avenue to a jobsite in the town of Medford, noticed what appeared to be a brand new garbage can lying on its side among other debris at the edge of the road. He stopped his car to look at the can more closely and thought that someone had “dumped a load of bad meat.”
He went on to the job site and told his supervisor about the mess and suggested that they clean up the area and pick up the garbage can. The supervisor went by the area on his way home and inspected the garbage can. He discovered the remains of a woman. This body remains unidentified.
In April, employees at a recycling plant in Brooklyn found a second dismembered nude, female body. Another body was found the following December by an employee of a sheet metal company.
The detectives working the case through an anonymous tip discovered that the last victim was a prostitute. He went to an area near where the body was found and talked to several other prostitutes and learned that a white male driving a blue Cadillac would frequently solicit the area. The man would not take the women to a hotel, but rather to a residence located in Nassau County.
The detective followed up on the lead and eventually the defendant was arrested and admitted to the crimes.
In all of the crimes the defendant brought the women to his room and killed them by beating them with a blunt object. He then did away with bodies by cutting them up. While the defendant contends that there was not enough evidence to support the convictions. The court disagrees.
Court Decision
The court finds all of the arguments made by the defendant to be without merit. For this reason, the judgment of conviction is affirmed. The sentence is modified to not include the death penalty.
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