Fero’s jury on to part 2
Jurors in 2012 bar stabbings find aggravating factors in start of penalty phase
When Dexter Lewis stabbed five people to death at Fero’s Bar and Grill in 2012, he did so in an “especially heinous, cruel or depraved” manner, jurors decided Wednesday.
That aggravating factor, along with six others for each victim, allow the penalty phase of the trial for Lewis to move to its second part. Three parts must be completed before a death sentence can be imposed.
In the second part, beginning Monday, jurors will hear potential mitigating factors in testimony from the defendant’s family and friends, probably including information about Lewis’ troubled upbringing.
But Wednesday’s focus was on the depravity of the crime.
“This case is different,” Matt Wenig, chief deputy district attorney, said in his closing arguments. “You’ve heard about the personal way that these victims were killed with that knife.”
“He simply went down the line, not caring about them, not showing any of them any mercy,” he said. “You’re allowed to think about the pain.”
Wenig listed the names and ages of each victim: Daria Pohl, 21; Kellene Fallon, 44; Ross Richter, 29; Tereasa Beesley, 45; and Young Fero, 63.
He also described their wounds graphically, including the puncturing of lungs suffered by many of the victims.
“They’re drowning internally in their own blood,” he said.
Lewis went to the bar with three others in the early hours of Oct. 17, 2012, intending to rob it. Two of the men with him that night testified against him in court, saying he went down the line stabbing the bar’s owner and four customers while they were held at gunpoint.
“Knowing what he’s doing, you can’t do anything, and knowing you’re next,” Wenig said Wednesday.
In the defense closing, attorney David Kraut cautioned the jury about moving too quickly.
“We accept your verdicts and we respect your verdicts,” he said. He called on the ju-
rors to exercise “vigilance and scrutiny.”
The jury of 10 women and two men took less than five hours to determine that the aggravating factors — including multiple victims and the killing of witnesses — existed.
At the end of the second part of the penalty phase, expected to last two to three weeks, jurors will as- sess whether certain mitigating facts about Lewis’ life outweigh the taking of five lives. If jurors find that the mitigating factors outweigh the aggravating ones, Lewis will be sentenced to life in prison. If not, the trial will move to the third part.
In the third part, jurors hear from victims’ families and possibly the defendant himself before deciding the appropriate punishment.
Jurors in the trial of the Aurora theater gunman James Holmes moved through all three parts of the penalty phase. They were unable to reach a unanimous verdict, so he will serve life in prison.
On Wednesday, Denver District Court Judge John Madden IV told jurors what they are likely to hear time and again in the coming weeks: “The life of another person rests solely in your hands.”