Killer spared death penalty

Judge orders life term in 3 slayings

August 25, 2004|By Jeff Coen, Tribune staff reporter.

After saying he had reflected on whether he had the "courage or whatever it takes" to sentence to death someone who pleads guilty to their crimes, a Cook County judge on Tuesday spared Ronald Hinton the death penalty for the murders of three women in the 1990s.

Judge James Schreier said there was enough evidence of physical and emotional abuse in Hinton's background and that he showed enough remorse, to preclude capital punishment. Hinton, 31, would instead be sentenced to life without parole, Schreier said.

The judge's voice was unsteady as he said he wanted to echo the victim-impact statement made by Ron Gagnier, the father of victim Keary Lea Gagnier, 36, who was killed in her North Side apartment in August 1998.

Hinton should "get down on his knees every night and pray for forgiveness for these horrific crimes," the judge said, repeating Gagnier's statement to the court last week.

Hinton cupped his hands and held them to his mouth at the defense table as Schreier handed down the sentence. Moments earlier, he had apologized to the family.

"I made the choice," said Hinton, who pleaded guilty to the three murders in May in a bid for leniency. "I can't begin to imagine the pain that you all feel for the lost family members, and you as loving family.

"I am truly sorry for all the pain and suffering and hurt that I caused."

In addition to Keary Lea Gagnier, Hinton admitted to strangling Felecia Mullins, 17, in December 1996, and Merceda Ares, 31, in February 1999. According to Hinton's statements to authorities in the case, Mullins was strangled after she told the defendant she was going to tell his longtime girlfriend about their affair. Gagnier and Ares were killed during home invasions after they were raped.

Hinton told police that Ares, a social worker, pleaded for her life during the attack, allegedly carried out with two other men, saying "she worked with guys like us all the time." He was arrested in the Ares murder after an image of him using the victim's ATM card was broadcast by a local news station, and his 3rd-grade daughter told her teacher about seeing her father on TV.

Gagnier's parents had no comment as they left the Criminal Courts Building.

Mullins' mother, Rose Hernandez, said her daughter would have wanted the death penalty, but nothing would bring her back.

The sentence was the second time in less than a year that Schreier has spared the life of a man who admitted to the murders of three women. Ronald Macon Jr., 39, was sentenced to a life term in September for three killings in Englewood.

Schreier's decision in Hinton's case came after Assistant Public Defender David Figura questioned Robert Smith, a psychologist from Ohio who interviewed Hinton three times.

Hinton experienced severe abuse as a child and was abandoned by his family, Smith said, and then battled drug addiction and suffered the loss of a son as an adult. As a boy, his mother would stand on him and beat him with a belt, Smith said, before she finally abandoned her children because she thought they were tainted by the devil.

Prosecutors dismissed that idea. Hinton led a life of crime that includes a long list of robberies, Assistant State's Atty. Joe Keating said, and photographic evidence from the murder scenes shows Hinton has "an evil soul."