Ex-Officer Sentenced to Death in 6 Killings, Tells Court: ‘I’m Not a Monster’

Former policeman Anthony (Jack) Sully, convicted in six gruesome 1983 murders, was sentenced on Tuesday to die in the gas chamber despite his plea for a new trial.

“I’m not a monster, a maniac nor am I subhuman,” Sully, 41, said during a 40-minute courtroom speech. “I can and will say that I did not kill six people, but who will believe me?”

Superior Court Judge Gerald Ragan upheld the sentencing recommendation of the jury that convicted Sully on June 3 for the murders of five women and one man.

Sully’s attorney, John Balliet, said his client didn’t ask that the sentence be changed to life in prison because, “if he doesn’t get a new trial, he would rather be on Death Row and be executed.”

Six deputies lined the courtroom walls to guard against an outburst from the defendant during the sentencing. When he was convicted after a seven-week trial, Sully shouted obscenities at the jury and at court officials.

Sully, a former Millbrae policeman, was running an electrical contracting business from a Burlingame warehouse when he was arrested in August, 1983. Assistant Dist. Atty. Tom Stevens said Sully killed the six victims at the warehouse and disposed of the bodies “in a notorious fashion so he could dote on newspaper stories of their discoveries.”

Sully was convicted in the slayings of Kathryn Barrett, 24; Barbara Searcy, 22; Gloria Jean Fravel, 24, and in the killings of three people who were shot in the heads and sealed in drums before being dumped in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. They were identified as Brendan Oakden, 19; Michael Thomas 24, and Phyllis Melendez, 20.