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INVERNESS, Fla. — A convicted sex offender was sentenced Friday to death for kidnapping 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, raping her and then burying her alive in his yard.
John Evander Couey looked straight ahead as Circuit Judge Ric Howard told him he should be executed for the 2005 crimes that led to new laws in many states cracking down on convicted sex offenders.
Sheriff's deputies hustled the handcuffed inmate out of the crowded courtroom.
The girl's father, Mark Lunsford, teared up as he listened to the judge read a detailed history of the case for nearly an hour. He hugged relatives after the sentence was read.
The jury that convicted Couey in March recommended 10-2 that he die for his crimes, but the decision was left to Howard.
An attorney for Couey, 49, had argued that he couldn't legally be executed because he is mentally retarded, but Howard brushed aside that claim in a strongly worded ruling earlier this month. Mentally retarded people cannot be executed under a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
The jury convicted Couey of taking the girl in February 2005 from her bedroom to his nearby trailer, sparking a massive search. The third-grader's body was found about three weeks after she disappeared in a grave in Couey's yard, about 150 yards from her own home.
Couey, already a convicted sex offender when he committed the crime, was arrested in Georgia and confessed to the killing. That confession was thrown out as evidence because Couey did not have a lawyer present.
Despite the confession being tossed, Couey incriminated himself other times. Jail guards and investigators testified that he repeatedly admitted details of the slaying after his arrest, insisting that he hadn't meant to kill the third-grader but panicked during an intense, nationally publicized police search.
Prosecutors also had overwhelming physical evidence, including DNA from the girl's blood and Couey's semen on a mattress in his room as well as her fingerprints in a closet where investigators said she was hidden.
Couey has a criminal record that includes 24 burglary arrests, carrying a concealed weapon and indecent exposure. He was designated a sex offender for exposing himself to a 5-year-old girl in 1991.
The oil is all in Texas, but the dipsticks are in D.C.
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08-24-2007 12:23 PM
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If that Judge had given him anything other than the death penalty I think Mark Lunsford would have had a heart attack. And I don't think the Judge would have made it out of court alive. Now when can we put that needle in this waste of DNA?
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Thank you for posting this,I hadn't heard.I can still see her fathers haunted looking face in my head.Although we seem to hear horrifying things everyday,this case has always stuck in my head(the fact that she was right there)
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he is getting off too easy I want him put in a couple of plastics bags and buried alive
Mom I miss you already
January 16, 1940 to April 29, 2009
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