Jury wants death penalty for Decay in 2007 slayings
Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008
FAYETTEVILLE - A Washington County jury on Thursday recommended a death sentence for the first time in 27 years in the murders of a young Fayetteville couple.
Gregory Christopher Decay, 22, was convicted Wednesday on two counts of capital murder in the April 2007 killings of Kevin Barkley Jones and Kendall Rachell Rice. It took the jury about 3 / 2 hours on Thursday to recommend the penalty for Decay, a Fayetteville resident who moved from New Orleans.
Julie Tolleson, an assistant public defender representing Decay, said she plans to appeal. "This has been a very sad and hard week for three families,"she said.
Decay shot Jones and Rice, both 24, once each in the face on April 3, 2007, as they stood in the apartment they'd just moved into at Club at the Creek Apartments at 701 W. Sycamore St. in Fayetteville.
Decay didn't show any emotion as the sentence was read by Circuit Judge William Storey. Members of all three families were silent as Storey spoke. Storey scheduled sentencing for 10: 30 a.m. on Monday.
The families left the courtroom separately after Storey excused the jury. Decay's family and friends cried as they filed into the hallway.
A phalanx of sheriff's deputies escorted Decay from the building. Decay wore a bulletresistant vest over his dress shirt and tie.
Vicki Rice, Kendall Rice's mother, said after the recommendation that she was relieved.
"It won't bring my daughter back, but it's justice,"she said.
Kinlee Sharp, Kendall Rice's older sister, stood in the hallway and watched Decay walk out. Decay glanced at her as he passed.
It was that same lack of visible emotion he displayed throughout the four-day trial that prosecutors argued showed Decay's lack of remorse for the murders.
In a police interview videotaped April 6, 2007, Decay described shooting Jones and Rice after he confronted them in their apartment.
He said he shot Jones once in the face, then walked toward Rice, who was standing in a doorway, and shot her. Decay said that he then picked up one of the spent shell casings and wiped the doorknob before fleeing.
Arkansas' chief medical examiner, Dr. Charles Kokes, told the jury on Tuesday that the bullet never exited Jones' skull, and he died from brain trauma. Kokes said that Jones could have faded in and out of consciousness for about 30 minutes before dying.
Rice was struck on the left side of her face. The bullet severed the carotid artery, Kokes said, so Rice likely lost consciousness almost instantly and died within a few minutes.
Washington County Prosecuting Attorney John Threet said afterward that he was reassured by the jury's action.
"He executed two people in their own home so he can go out and tell people that's what happens when you mess with me,"Threet said.
"I'm relieved,"he said. "I'm not happy. I'm not excited."
Cases eligible for the death penalty are rare in Washington County and having jurors reach that decision is even more unusual.
In 1981, a Washington County jury sentenced Billy Gale Henry, 53, to death for the murder of West Fork Police Chief Paul Mueller. But the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1983 reduced Henry's sentence to life in prison without parole.
Henry died from chronic heart disease in 1994.
The last Washington County defendant to face the death penalty at trial was Fernando Navarro, who was tried for capital murder in March 2006 in the November 2004 stabbing of Springdale musician David Edwards.
A jury instead convicted the 24-year-old Navarro of first-degree murder and aggravated robbery, and Storey sentenced him to two consecutive life terms.
The last person to be executed from Washington County was in 1920, said Dina Tyler, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Correction. Vick Tobay, a 24-year-old American Indian, was electrocuted for murder and robbery.
Juror Mark Cunningham of Farmington said none of nine mitigating factors cited by Decay's defense attorneys was strong enough to keep Decay from getting the death penalty.
He said jurors were able to evaluate the evidence without being distracted by the "ramblings of lawyers."
"When anyone goes into a room and point blank shoots someone in the head and then walks over and shoots his girlfriend in the head, there's very little left to your imagination,"said Cunningham, the Farmington fire chief.
It was difficult for Cunningham to listen to the testimony of Austin Jones, the brother of Kevin Jones. Cunningham's own brother died four months ago.
"If you weren't bothered by any of that, you don't have a heart,"Cunningham said. "When it comes down to doing your job as a juror, you have to put all of that behind you and look at the law and follow that. That's how you come up with the decision like that.
"No juror should hang his head and feel guilt at any means. That doesn't say it doesn't bother you."
Juror Joseph R. Parker of Springdale wouldn't say much about the jury's discussions or how they decided on the death penalty.
"It's not something I'd want anyone else to have to go through,"Parker said.
Jesse Westeen, 21, is charged as an accomplice to capital murder in the case. Westeen told police he drove Decay to the couple's apartment knowing that Decay had a gun and that he planned to shoot them, an arrest affidavit states.
Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty for Westeen, who is awaiting trial.
Decay will join six other men from Northwest Arkansas sentenced to death, including James Aaron Miller of Fort Smith, who was sentenced in Sebastian County earlier this month.
On April 16, the U. S. Supreme Court upheld the lethal-injection method used by a number of states, including Arkansas, to administer the death penalty, clearing the way for a resumption of executions after a sevenmonth hiatus.
In Arkansas, four death row inmates have filed a similar challenge to the state's lethal-injection procedure, and the state had declared a halt to all executions until the Supreme Court case was decided. It's possible Arkansas could decide to keep its moratorium in place until the challenge filed by death row inmates Don Davis, Jack Harold Jones Jr., Terrick Nooner and Frank Williams is decided, he said. Davis was sentenced to death in Benton County in 1990. The inmates have a lawsuit pending before U. S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright. Proceedings in the case were stopped when the Supreme Court took up the Kentucky case, and they are now expected to resume. Arkansas hasn't executed anyone since November 2005, when Eric Nance was put to death for the murder of Julie Heath, an 18-year-old Malvern woman. Information for this article was contributed by Michelle Bradford and Robert J. Smith of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
To contact this reporter: awallworth@arkansasonline. com
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