Jury recommends death for murderer

STAFF REPORT

NEW CASTLE, Pa. — A jury deliberated for five hours Monday before deciding a New Castle man will die for the murder of a city woman.

Gaylord Spell, 46, was convicted Thursday of first-degree murder in the beating death of SueAnn Brest. Brest’s nude body was found March 1, 2007, in the parking lot of the Lawrence County Career and Technical Center in Shenango Township.

She had been struck in the head 10 times with a blunt object. Two of those blows — to her temples — splintered her skull into star patterns, said the forensic pathologist who conducted her autopsy.

Dr. James Smith testified during the penalty phase of Spell’s trial before Judge J. Craig Cox of Lawrence County Common Pleas Court.

Judge Cox will formally sentence Spell to death at a later date.

Investigators charged Spell with the murder after DNA recovered from Brest’s body matched his in a national database.

Investigators don’t know how the two knew each other. They did not live far from each other on the city’s south side.

District Attorney John Bongivengo argued for the death penalty on the aggravated circumstance of torture.

The jury had to decide whether Brest was tortured based on criteria that included how she was wounded and how many times, whether she was wounded in a vital or nonvital area of her body, whether she was conscious and the duration of the attack against her.

Bongivengo said Brest could have been conscious during some of the blows to the head. He said that because she was beaten on her back, shoulders and face as well as her head, it was clear that Spell intended not just to kill her, but to inflict pain.

Bongivengo said the “small and frail” woman, whose size 3 bloody jeans were part of several clothing items recovered along back roads in Adams Township, Butler County, “was pummeled.” Investigators testified Spell threw her clothes out the window as he drove to work from New Castle to Cranberry Township, Butler County.

Bongivengo also said no one saw Brest after Feb. 27 until her body was recovered March 1.

Public Defender Harry Falls asked the jury to consider mitigating circumstances to find for life in prison.

He said those circumstances included Spell’s low IQ of 75, the fact that he’d never had any serious discipline problems while he was in jail for two years after the killing, and the fact that he never tried to tell the jury he didn’t kill Brest. Spell did not testify.

The jury found no mitigating circumstances, however.

Some of Brest’s family members testified Monday. Neal Walker, Brest’s stepfather, said her death has been hard on the family. “It’s been an emotional burden. I’ve had to remain strong, and it’s wearing me down, too,” he said.

“I have to go every day without my mom and my best friend,” said 24-year-old Rose Cross, Brest’s daughter.