8/10/2019 Perry Gets 3 Death Sentences; Hit Man Maintains Innocence in Court- [FINAL Edition] Oct171995

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Perry Gets 3 Death Sentences; Hit Man Maintains Innocence in Court: [FINAL Edition]

James Edward Perry was sentenced to death three times over last night after a Montgomery County jury

decided that he should die for the hired-gun murders of Janice Saunders, Mildred Horn and 8-year-old

Trevor Horn. The same jury found him guilty of the slayings last Thursday.

Perry, 47, of Detroit, received all three of foreman James Campbell's announcements of "death" with the

same level demeanor he displayed throughout the six weeks he has been on trial for his life. Moments

later the defendant stood and, placing a hand on the table before him, addressed the jury for the first

time.

"The finders of fact have found me guilty and have imposed the death penalty," Perry said, all but snarling

the word "fact." "But I stand before you this evening and say I had nothing to do with these crimes. I aminnocent, and I will continue to fight the good fight."

Circuit Court Judge D. Warren Donohue imposed the three death sentences and an additional sentence

of life in prison for conspiring to commit murder. The conspiracy count was the only one on which state

law left the trial judge any discretion. In Maryland only juries may decide capital sentences.

Defense attorney Roger W. Galvin said the death sentences will be appealed for "errors of fact," which he

declined to specify. The first appeal, to the Maryland Court of Appeals, is automatic and Donohue stayed

the sentence pending its outcome.

It was the first death sentence a Montgomery jury has delivered since 1981, when James A. Calhoun was

sentenced to the gas chamber for murdering a police officer in a Silver Spring robbery. Nine years later

another Montgomery jury settled on life for Calhoun in a re-hearing occasioned by a U.S. Supreme Court

decision that set aside several Maryland death cases.

The General Assembly since has changed the means of execution to lethal injection.

Jurors, led into Donohue's chambers after the sentence, were not available to comment.

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Lawrence T. , the Los Angeles man prosecutors say hired Perry to carry out the killings in a plot to inherit

a large malpractice settlement from Trevor, his son, is scheduled to be tried in January on the same

charges. He also could face the death penalty if convicted.

"Halfway home," Montgomery County State's Attorney Andrew L. Sonner told relatives of the victims'

families, who rushed to embrace prosecutors and investigators after Perry was handcuffed and led away

to what Donohue specified must be solitary confinement.

"All we wanted was to have justice," said Marilyn Horn's sister, Marilyn Farmer, who earlier had jurors

dabbing away tears as she described the joyous effect her disabled nephew had on those around him.

Though originally brought home to die after a hospital accident left him quadriplegic and severely

retarded, the boy had thrived on the attention of his mother's extended family and care financed by

insurance and a $2 million malpractice settlement.

In Trevor's attenuated language, Farmer said, "el" referred to his twin sister, Tamielle, and "la la" meant "I

love you."

"We think it's a fine and just verdict," said Terry Krebs, sister of Janice Saunders, the nurse whose body

was found beside the boy and who, like Mildred Horn, had been shot in the eye.

Reading the lengthy jury forms took 17 minutes. The Saunders family sat stone-faced through it while

members of Mildred Horn's family gasped "thank you" and "thank you, Jesus." Across the aisle, Robert

Casey, the lead FBI agent on the case, threw an arm around Montgomery County detective Craig

Wittenberger. Moments later Wittenberger leaned forward and quietly wept.

"It's an emotionally draining process, and you're not happy when you hear the sentence of death

imposed," said Deputy State's Attorney Robert Dean, who along with Assistant State's Attorney Teresa

Whalen prosecuted the case. Sonner, the county's head prosecutor, called it "the finest investigated and

prosecuted case I've seen in 30 years."

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In closing arguments, Dean pointed out that Perry's case had two of the 10 "aggravating factors" that

justify a death sentence under Maryland law: contract murder and multiple victims.

Defense attorneys scrambled to name "mitigating factors," but in their finding jurors named only one. It

was "mercy for a fellow human being," and the form indicated the jurors did not all agree on it. The death

verdicts were unanimous.

Credit: Washington Post Staff Writer

Word count: 725

Copyright The Washington Post Company Oct 17, 1995