Survivalist sentenced to death
UNITED STATES: A survivalist convicted of killing a Pennsylvania state trooper in a 2014 sniper attack that sparked a massive manhunt has been sentenced to death.
A jury in Pike County deliberated for about five hours yesterday before returning the verdict in the penalty phase of Eric Frein’s trial.
Frein showed no emotion as the sentence was read in court. One of his lawyers, William Ruzzo, said he planned to appeal.
The same jury last week convicted Frein, 33, of firstdegree murder of a law enforcement officer for the fatal shooting of Corporal Bryon Dickson II, 38, outside the Blooming Grove barracks.
Frein, who evaded capture for weeks following the attack, was also convicted of other charges, including terrorism and the attempted murder of Trooper Alex Douglass, 34, who was shot and critically wounded as he rushed to Dickson’s aid.
Frein is a survivalist, and during the trial prosecutors told the jurors that the sniper attack was aimed at sparking a ‘‘revolution’’ against the US government.
In closing arguments in the trial’s death penalty phase yesterday, Ray Tonkin, the Pike County district attorney, said Frein methodically planned the ambush.
Tonkin also played a recorded prison telephone conversation in which Frein was heard telling his mother how he wanted to sell his story to the media, and repeatedly laughing.
Michael Weinstein, the lead defence lawyer, said Frein was the victim of a dysfunctional family who was influenced by anti-police views held by his father, a retired US Army major.
After the shooting, Frein eluded authorities during a 48-day manhunt through the dense forests of the Pocono Mountains, about 160 kilometres north of Philadelphia.
The US$11 million search, which put the community on edge for weeks, ended when he was captured by U.S. marshals outside an abandoned airplane hangar near Tannersville, Pennsylvania.