|
 Johnathan Doody, 39, faces multiple life sentences after being
convicted by a jury in January of nine counts each of first-degree
murder and armed robbery for a massacre that attracted international
attention and that remains to this day the most deadly mass murder
in the southwest U.S. state's history.
Doody also was convicted of one count each of burglary and
conspiracy by jurors in Maricopa County Superior Court following a
month-long trial.
The Thailand-born man will not speak at the morning sentencing
hearing before Judge Joseph Kreamer in the superior court, said
Maria Schaffer, one of his attorneys. Doody did not testify during
his last trial.
Doody is not eligible for the death penalty because he was 17 at the
time of the killings at the Wat Promkunaram temple in Waddell,
Arizona, prosecutors said.
He was originally convicted in 1994, but a U.S. appeals court threw
out the decision in May 2011, saying it was based on a coerced
confession, and a retrial was ordered. A second jury deadlocked on
his fate in October 2013.
The case cast a harsh spotlight on Arizona, focusing a critical
glance at the tactics used to solicit confessions from the accused.
The bodies of six monks, one novice, one nun and a temple boy were
discovered on August 10, 1991, in a circle, face down, each slain by
a single gunshot to the head. Personal property was taken and their
living spaces vandalized.
[to top of second column] |
Four men from Tucson were originally arrested for the crime after an
intense interrogation by sheriff's deputies resulted in their
confessions. But the charges were dropped when the men later
recanted and authorities could not pin the crime on them.
Authorities then focused on Doody and his high school classmate,
Alessandro "Alex" Garcia, 16, when a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle
was found during an unrelated search of a friend's vehicle. It was
identified as the murder weapon.
Doody was questioned by investigators for 12 hours in October 1991
and admitted to his involvement. Garcia said Doody was the
mastermind of the plan to rob the temple, ordered that no witnesses
be left, and fired the fatal shots.
Doody was convicted and sentenced to 281 years in prison in 1994 and
Garcia, who was the key witness for the prosecution at Doody's
latest trial, pleaded guilty for the murders and an unrelated
homicide and was sentenced to 271 years in prison in 1993.
(Reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix;
editing by Eric M. Johnson
and Ken Wills)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
