Jury recommends death for Cleveland schoolgirl’s killer
Suspect did not contest charges of aggravated murder.
A Cuyahoga CLEVELAND —
County jury recommended the execution of Christopher Whitaker for the kidnap, rape and murder of 14-year-old Alianna DeFreeze.
Jurors took about six hours to deliberate and reach their recommendation that Whitaker pay the state’s ultimate penalty for his crimes against the middle-schooler last January.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Carolyn Friedland read the jury’s recommendation in court Friday.
She will decide at a later date whether to impose the death penalty or sentence Whitaker to life in prison.
Testimony in the trial began Feb. 1, more than a year after Whitaker kidnapped Alianna from a bus stop as she made her way to school, then raped, tortured and killed her in a vacant home on Fuller Avenue near East 93rd Street and Kinsman Road.
Whitaker told his attorneys not to contest the charges at trial, and told the jury Thursday morning he did so because it “wouldn’t be fair” to the DeFreeze family.
Jurors found him guilty on all counts on Feb. 13. During the penalty phase, his lawyers sought to convince jurors to spare his life by pointing to Whitaker’s confession to police, remorse for the crime, and a childhood in which his mother died when he was 8 and he was exposed to domestic violence.
Prosecutors pointed out that Whitaker’s family tried to help steer his life on the right track, and that the factors his lawyers presented did not allay the horror that Whitaker inflicted upon Alianna as he carried out his crimes.