Man convicted of killing 5 in Denver bar to be sentenced to life in prison without parole

By Sadie Gurman, The Associated Press

DENVER – A man convicted of stabbing five people to death at a Denver bar and setting the business on fire will not be executed and instead will serve a lifelong prison sentence, a jury decided Thursday.

It is the second time in a month that a Colorado jury has decided against execution for a mass killer. Earlier this month jurors choose not to give the death penalty to James Holmes, who attacked a movie theatre in suburban Denver in 2012.

Lewis was convicted Aug. 10 of five counts of murder for stabbing five people to death in a bar robbery in October 2012 that netted $170.

Prosecutors said Lewis led a four-man robbery crew at Fero’s Bar and Grill. He killed the bar’s owner and four customers. Two of the men at the robbery testified that Lewis, 25, went down a line stabbing his victims while they were held at gunpoint.

“He simply went down the line, not caring about them, not showing any of them any mercy,” prosecutor Matt Wenig told jurors when they began considering execution for Lewis.

The bar was set ablaze before the men fled.

Lewis’ defence carefully detailed his abusive childhood, which included Lewis watching his father brutally treat his mother and taking beatings and verbal abuse of his own.

His mother, Tammesa Jones, described beating the boy while she abused drugs and alcohol.

“I’d hit him with a belt, hit him with my fists. … I would hit him all over,” Jones said, breaking down in tears. “I hit him, probably like, every day.”

Killed in the robbery were the bar’s owner, Young Suk Fero, 53, and four customers — Daria M. Pohl, 21, of Denver; Kellene Fallon, 44, of Denver; Ross Richter, 29, of Overland Park, Kansas; and Tereasa Beesley, 45, of Denver.

Denver Chief Deputy District Attorney Joe Morales said the victims’ relatives knew it was possible Lewis would not get the death penalty and they have accepted the verdict.

“We believe the death penalty was the appropriate punishment but the system worked and we have no regrets about what we have done and what we saw in this case,” Morales said. He added: “Nobody is walking away a winner or a loser today.”

Lewis’ accomplices, brothers Joseph and Lynell Hill, pleaded guilty to murder under deals with prosecutors and received lengthy sentences. The fourth man, Demarea Harris, was a confidential informant at the time for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and reported the slayings to authorities. He was never charged in the case.

Harris and Lynell Hill testified that Lewis stabbed all five people. Joseph Hill refused to testify.

Earlier this month, a separate jury in suburban Arapahoe County rejected the death penalty for Holmes, the theatre shooter, who killed 12 people and injured 70 others.

In the Holmes case, the defence argued not that Holmes was abused as a boy but that he was mentally ill.

Under Colorado law, juries must unanimously agree to impose death sentences. In this case, at least one juror sided with Lewis’ defence team that his abusive childhood was a mitigating factor that favoured a life sentence over execution.

No Denver jury has sentenced someone to death since 1986.

Colorado has not executed anyone since 1997.

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