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| Jury Sends Convicted Killer to Join Father on Death Row |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 12/16/2002 |
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A man convicted of helping to torture and murder his friend's adoptive parents will join his father on death row. Jurors deliberated three hours last week before sentencing Landon D. May, 20, to death for his role in the murders of elementary school principal Lucy Smith and her husband, Terry, on Sept. 6, 2001. The same jury convicted May last week of two counts of first-degree murder. The decision came despite the contention of May's attorney that the defendant suffered from a ``brain dysfunction'' that prevented him from thinking normally. The lawyer said May also once required medical treatment for depression and anxiety. May's father, Freeman May, was sentenced to death in 1995 for a 1982 murder. Lancaster County Assistant District Attorney Craig Stedman said May helped plan the early-morning home invasion and duct-taped, tortured, and murdered Lucy and Terry Smith in their townhouse. He said May and friend Michael Bourgeois stabbed Terry Smith with a barbecue fork dozens of times while trying to get Smith to disclose the password on his bank account card. And Stedman said May forced Lucy Smith, the Bourgeois' 18-year-old adoptive mother, to perform oral sex on him during the two-hour attack. The couple suffered nearly 200 wounds from being stabbed, shot and beaten before they finally were strangled, he said. "If you're thinking about mercy, then it's entirely appropriate to think about the mercy he showed these two people in September 2001 when he held their lives in his hands,'' Stedman told jurors. Bourgeois; Drenea Rodriguez, his lover at the time; and Steven L. Estes, 19, also are charged with first-degree murder in the case and are awaiting trial. |
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