Jurors recommend death for teen’s killer

CLEVELAND — A Cuyahoga 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 middleschooler last January.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Carolyn Friedland read the jury’s recommendation in court Friday.

She set the sentencing hearing for 11 a.m. March 5, where she will announce whether she will adopt the jury’s recommendation and impose the death penalty, or instead sentence Whitaker to life in prison.

Alianna’s family, who packed in the back of the courtroom, embraced one another and shed tears after the verdict was read.

“He got what the law thought he deserved,” Alianna’s mother, Donesha Cooper, said through tears at the hearing’s end. “And that was too good for him.”

Damon DeFreeze, the girl’s father, said that he would have preferred Whitaker be sentenced to life without a chance at parole, but respected the jury’s decision.

“I prefer him to sit there forever,” the father said. “I want this man to experience hell on earth before he experiences hell in the afterlife.”

DeFreeze also said he was focused keeping Alianna’s name alive, as Whitaker’s sentence could do little to dull the pain his family has felt since her body was found.

Cooper thanked Cleveland police officers, detectives and Cuyahoga County prosecutors for their work on the case.

County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley, in an emailed statement, thanked the jury for its decision.

“The facts in this case were so barbaric that I pray this community never sees another case like it,” O’Malley said.

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 persuade 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.