Death Debated for a Confessed Killer

In a case that has fueled the debate over capital punishment in Massachusetts, federal prosecutors on Wednesday asked a jury to impose the death penalty on a 44-year-old drifter who confessed to murdering three good Samaritans.

Gesturing toward Gary Lee Sampson, Assistant U.S. Atty. George Vien told the jury: “This man sitting right here in the blue shirt is a cunning, manipulative, cold-blooded killer who preyed on the good-hearted.

“He sucked them in by dressing up nicely and pretending to be a traveler in need,” Vien said in his opening statement. “He killed all three of his victims simply for their cars.”

But David Ruhnke, a New Jersey attorney who specializes in representing defendants who face the death penalty, portrayed his client as “a mentally diseased man” who tried to stop his 2001 killing spree before it began by calling the FBI and offering to turn himself in. Ruhnke said Sampson waited for federal authorities at the appointed time and place, but they never showed up.

“The correct verdict is to send Gary Sampson to disappear into a maximum-security prison for the rest of his life, based on common sense and mercy,” Ruhnke said.

“We are presenting the case for life in this courtroom,” he said, “as the government presented its case for death.”

Sampson pleaded guilty in September to killing Philip McCloskey, Jonathan Rizzo and Robert Whitney during a three-day carjacking spree in July 2001.

Federal authorities in Massachusetts claimed jurisdiction over the case because of a law passed by Congress in 1994 that made carjackings resulting in a victim’s death a federal capital offense.

The state of Massachusetts declared capital punishment unconstitutional in 1984. Eleven other states -- four of them in New England -- also bar executions.

Two other federal death penalty cases in Massachusetts since 1994 have resulted in life sentences. Repeated attempts to legalize capital punishment here have been voted down by the state Legislature.

Death penalty opponents contend the federal government seized upon the grisly, high-profile Sampson case as a vehicle to rouse support for reinstituting the death penalty in Massachusetts.

“That’s what I am sure they are trying to do,” said Martina Jackson, head of the Massachusetts Anti-Death Penalty Coalition. “It’s a foot-in-the-door: first the federal government, then the state government. Once they prove that a jury in Massachusetts might vote for the death penalty, they will move to bring it back in this state.”

The case is so sensitive that Judge Mark Wolf and attorneys for both sides spent six weeks interviewing more than 700 prospective jurors before selecting eight women and four men, plus six alternates. Wolf spent nearly two hours Wednesday instructing the jury on the intricacies of federal death penalty law.

“The law is based on the presumption that death is a more severe sentence than life in prison,” he said. “You must accept this. If you have a personal opinion that life in prison would be a worse fate than death, you must put that opinion aside.”

To impose the death penalty, the jury must reach a unanimous verdict, Wolf said.

The controversy in the case is complicated by the fact that Sampson telephoned the Boston office of the FBI and offered to surrender before killing his three victims. William H. Anderson, the clerk who took the call, originally told investigators that he had not received a call from Sampson.

In March, Wolf sentenced Anderson to six months in federal prison for lying to the investigators after phone records proved Sampson had indeed placed the call.

“The FBI screwed up,” Vien told jurors.

Prosecutors Wednesday played a graphic audio recording in which Sampson confessed to robbing five banks in North Carolina before returning to his hometown of Abington, Mass., which is south of Boston. On the tape, Sampson said he picked out a bank to rob in Abington, but instead, “I ended up killing somebody.”

His first victim was McCloskey, a 69-year-old retired father of five who had survived heart bypass surgery and prostate cancer. McCloskey had been driving to a cousin’s house when he stopped and picked up a well-dressed hitchhiker, Sampson. Sampson forced McCloskey to a remote, wooded area. After stabbing him multiple times, Sampson said on the tape, “I slit his throat. Why, I do not know.”

Next he killed Rizzo, a 19-year-old college student working at a fish restaurant during summer break. Sampson led his victim to a secluded spot and tied him to a tree.

“I sprayed him with Off [insect repellent] to make him think I wasn’t going to kill him,” Sampson said. But he stuffed Rizzo’s own socks in his mouth to keep him from calling out, then stabbed him to death. Sampson then drove Rizzo’s car to a lakeside resort community in New Hampshire. He broke into what looked like an empty house, but was surprised when Whitney, a neighbor who was caring for the house, appeared.

“He struggled, he was pretty strong,” Sampson said on the tape. “The man died slow.”

Ruhnke said Sampson should not be executed because he suffers from bipolar disorder. Ruhnke also argued Sampson’s life should be spared because he tried to surrender to federal authorities and confessed to his crimes.

“Based on reason, mercy and justice,” Ruhnke told the court, “it is time for the killing to stop.”