Jurors Begin to Consider Death Sentence for Caro
The jurors who convicted Socorro Caro of first-degree murder spent five hours considering the death sentence for her Friday, the first day of deliberations in the penalty phase of her trial.
Caro shot three of her young sons as they slept in the family’s Santa Rosa Valley home on Nov. 22, 1999. After a nine-week trial, she was found guilty last month.
Jurors are to recommend one of two sentences: life in prison without parole or death by injection. Superior Court Judge Donald D. Coleman will make the final decision. Before retiring to their meeting room at 11:15 a.m., jurors heard Assistant Public Defender Jean Farley plead for her client’s life.
“The death penalty is reserved for the very worst of the very worst,” she said, arguing that Caro led a virtually blameless life before the killings.
Prosecutors have cast Caro as a volatile and insecure woman who would unpredictably lash out at her husband, Dr. Xavier Caro. Defense attorneys have told a dramatically different story, painting Caro as reasonable and accommodating while she tried fruitlessly to please a tightly wound bully.
The 10 women and two men on the jury will resume deliberations Monday.
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