Jury Orders Death Penalty for Sattiewhite in Oxnard Killing : Courts: He had been convicted of shooting a mother of four. Defense sought a life term, claiming that he was abused and has the mind of a child.

A jury Monday condemned a convicted Oxnard murderer to death for the fatal shooting of a 30-year-old mother of four.

Christopher James Sattiewhite, 24, becomes the eighth Ventura County defendant to face death in the gas chamber since California reinstated capital punishment in 1978.

Unlike previous court appearances in which he displayed little emotion, Sattiewhite seemed on the verge of crying after Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch announced the death verdict to the silence of a hushed courtroom.

As tears welled in his eyes, he nervously tapped his fingers on the defense table and stroked his beard. Shaking his head in apparent disbelief, he rocked back and forth in his chair.

After the proceeding, Sattiewhite remained glued to his chair as his attorneys tried to coax him to leave the courtroom. Lawyer Willard P. Wiksell later explained that his client, who was described in court as being childlike, was both astonished and frightened by the verdict.

“He doesn’t want to die. He just doesn’t want to go to Death Row,” Wiksell said. “He’s dejected and has lost hope.”

Sattiewhite eventually stood and walked to a holding cell, flashing a brief smile to a supporter in the courtroom’s gallery before leaving.

“Justice was done,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Patricia M. Murphy declared.

But Wiksell, visibly dejected himself, said he thought that the defense had provided the jury with adequate reason to spare Sattiewhite’s life.

“I was very disappointed,” Wiksell said later. “I think there was a mitigating factor. There’s no dispute that he has the mind of a 12-year-old.”

Sattiewhite shot Genoveva Gonzales in the head three times Jan. 26, 1992, and left her body in a drainage ditch along Arnold Road in Oxnard.

Investigators said the murder occurred after Sattiewhite inadvertently called out the name of an accomplice who had kidnaped and raped Gonzales. The killing was necessary to prevent the woman from identifying her assailants, according to court testimony.

Monday’s verdict ended three days of deliberations for the jury, the same panel that convicted Sattiewhite of murder Feb. 24. Just moments before voting to condemn the defendant, jurors heard a reading of the riveting testimony of a woman whom Sattiewhite had previously been convicted of raping.

“In our opinion, that was a key factor” in the verdict, Murphy said, referring to Sattiewhite’s being previously convicted of a violent crime.

“You’re never happy when somebody is given the death penalty,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald C. Glynn, co-prosecutor on the case. “You are never happy when society has to impose its greatest penalty.”

But he said prosecutors are satisfied that they were able to avenge the Gonzales murder.

Jurors refused to be interviewed and exited the courthouse through a back door.

Storch set sentencing April 25. At that time, he will also rule on a defense motion to reduce the verdict to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Glynn said he expects Storch to uphold the verdict of death, noting that no Ventura County judge has ever reversed such a decision.

Wiksell made the motion for the reduced verdict. “Chris Sattiewhite will get a fair shake from Judge Storch,” he said.

The last Ventura County defendant to receive a verdict of death was former day-care aide Gregory Scott Smith. He was tried in October, 1991, for killing 8-year-old Paul Bailly of Northridge and burning the boy’s body.

The county’s next death penalty trial is set Aug. 1. Mark Scott Thornton will be tried for last summer’s slaying of Westlake nurse Kellie O’Sullivan, who was killed after a carjacking, authorities said.

Prosecutors have called the Gonzales murder one of the most senseless crimes to hit the area in a long time.

They told the jury that Sattiewhite is a “vicious predator” who acted out a childhood fantasy when he killed the woman. Sattiewhite had told a psychologist that as a child, he often dreamed of killing for the thrill of seeing if he could get away with it.

Prosecutors also said Sattiewhite was a gang member who enjoyed carrying a gun and holding victims at bay while they were raped by his friends.

Defense attorneys asked for mercy, saying Sattiewhite is a former abused child who suffers from a lifelong brain defect and has problems distinguishing right from wrong. They argued that a sentence of life in prison was more than adequate.

They also said that due to his mental defect, Sattiewhite was easily manipulated by accomplices in both the Gonzales rape-murder and the previous rape, which occurred at Oxnard Beach in September, 1991.

Defense attorneys never minimized Gonzales’ death, saying their client committed a terrible crime. But they pointed out that the victim had a drug conviction and claimed that she was a prostitute who was hoping to trade sex for drugs the day she died.

On Monday, Wiksell wondered whether he should have used a less elaborate defense.

“If you only look at the crime, it is a death penalty case,” he conceded. “But if you look at the crime and (Sattiewhite), it’s a life-in-prison case. Maybe I should have just told the jury that.”