Jury finds Ohio man guilty of rape
The defendant and an accomplice are both from Ironton, Ohio.
GREENUP, Ky. (AP) -- A northeastern Kentucky jury found an Ohio man guilty of raping a video store manager in July 2004 and recommended he spend the rest of his life behind bars.
A Greenup County Circuit Court jury also found Wayne C. Murphy guilty of first-degree assault and first-degree robbery and recommended 20-year sentences on each to run consecutively. All three recommended sentences were the maximum allowed by law.
Murphy, 32, of Ironton, Ohio, was accused of raping the store manager in an office at the rear of the store while an accomplice, William Ryan Dixon, restrained her in a chair. He then struck her in the head with a hammer hard enough to cave in the front of her skull.
Jurors deliberated for an hour and 40 minutes Tuesday before returning the guilty verdicts. Murphy shuddered visibly at one point as the verdicts were being read by Judge Lewis Nicholls.
The jury also found that the sexual assault had resulted in serious physical injury to the victim, an aggravating factor.
"If this is not a case that warrants a life sentence, then I don't ever want to see one," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Melvin C. Leonhart told jurors during his closing remarks in the sentencing phase of the trial.
Under state sentencing guidelines, Murphy will be eligible to meet with the parole board for the first time after he has spent 20 years in prison. He also will be required to complete a two-year sex offender treatment program before he can earn any time that counts toward his parole hearing date.
Dixon, also of Ironton, Ohio, was sentenced in August to 47 years in prison on first-degree rape, assault and robbery convictions.