Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck will seek the death
penalty for three of six people charged with the torture and slaying of
a mentally disabled woman in Greensburg.

In court documents filed Monday, Mr. Peck listed two aggravating
circumstances that he said justified capital punishment against Ricky
Smyrnes, 23; and Melvin Knight and Amber Meidinger, both 20: that they
killed 30-year-old Jennifer Daugherty by means of torture and did so
while in the perpetration of a felony.

All six are charged with homicide, conspiracy, aggravated assault and
kidnapping.

Prosecutors say the six held Ms. Daugherty against her will in their
Greensburg apartment for more than two days while they beat her with
household items, bound her with Christmas decorations, fed her cocktails
of urine and pills, and forced her to write a fake suicide note before
stabbing her and carting her body to the parking lot of Greensburg Salem
Middle School in a neighbor's garbage can.

The February killing drew cries of outrage, not the least of which from
Ms. Daugherty's relatives, who said they were pleased with Mr. Peck's
decision.

"We were ecstatic about it," Ms. Daugherty's stepfather, Bobby Murphy,
said. "This is what those three deserved."

Mr. Peck is not seeking death for Robert Masters Jr., 36; Peggy Miller,
27; and Angela Marinucci, 17, who is charged as an adult but too young
to be eligible for capital punishment. He would not elaborate on the
reasons for his decision, but wrote in a statement that it was "made
after a careful examination of the circumstances leading up to
Jennifer's death, the days in which she was held captive and the
defendants' conduct following the homicide."

"All the defendants were given an opportunity to provide this office
with evidence of mitigating circumstances that were also carefully
considered prior to making this decision," he said.

A trial date is expected to be scheduled in September.

Mr. Smyrnes' attorney, Scott Avolio, said he was disappointed by the
outcome and raised concerns about his client's intelligence. Months
before the killing, he said, Mr. Smyrnes took a test for the
Westmoreland County Children's Bureau that showed he had an IQ of 67.
The Supreme Court has said that an IQ below 70 can be classified as
mentally retarded, a condition that legally could exclude the death
penalty as a possibility.

Despite his well-articulated confession, Mr. Smyrnes is "extremely low
functioning" and incapable of masterminding the killing, Mr. Avolio said.

In taped statements, played during their preliminary hearing, Mr.
Smyrnes and Mr. Knight gave different accounts of the ordeal, each
blaming the other for orchestrating the slaying. In his confession, Mr.
Knight said Mr. Smyrnes was the ringleader who ordered him to stab Ms.
Daugherty with a steak knife until she was dead.

Mr. Knight's attorney, Jeffrey Miller, could not be reached for comment.
Emily Smarto, who represents Ms. Meidinger, declined to discuss Mr.
Peck's decision. Mr. Knight told police Ms. Meidinger beat Ms.
Daugherty, stomped on her stomach and bashed her head against a wall.
Clues about Ms. Meidinger's background emerged in handwritten letters
she sent Common Pleas Judge Rita D. Hathaway last month from jail.

In two letters, filed in court, Ms. Meidinger wrote that she was abused
by her mother as a baby, lived in "shelter after shelter" starting when
she was 18, and said she suffers from "ADHD, bipolar," and "intermediate
explosive disorder."

She said she was five months pregnant, Mr. Knight was her "fiance" and
that she had only known the other co-defendants for two days before the
killing.

"I'm so scared that I'm having a baby in jail because of the crime," she
wrote. "I just never thought my life would end up like this, but I pray
every night."

Ms. Marinucci, who Mr. Smyrnes told police was jealous of his budding
relationship with Ms. Daugherty, briefly appeared before Judge Hathaway
Monday while her attorney, Michael DeMatt, requested more information
from Mr. Peck about her role in the crime.

Mr. Murphy attended the hearing, then gathered copies of Mr. Peck's news
release to deliver to relatives and supporters.

"I'm going to go to every hearing I can go to," Mr. Murphy said. "I am
going to make the defendants look at me, and I am going to make the
judge look at me."

Ms. Daugherty's killing prompted a push for the death penalty from some
community members, who rallied shortly after her death and formed a
Facebook group dedicated to their cause. Emotional messages posted there
on Monday praised Mr. Peck and reminded that the shock of her slaying
still lingers.

"The pain is always going to be there," Mr. Murphy said. "Nothing will
ever ease the pain."

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--
The fashion in killing has an insouciant, flirty style this spring,
with the flaunting of well-defined muscle, wrapped in flags.

- Comment from an article on Antiwar.com (http://antiwar.com)