Man is sentenced to life in ’88 slaying

It has taken 25 years for the family of Eric Rice to see their son’s killer brought to justice. It will be at least another 25 years before Steven Michael Humelhans, found guilty of first-degree murder, will have the chance to walk free.

Rice’s supporters came to believe his death following a pizzashop robbery would never be solved.

Humelhans, whose unnamed coconspirator was never arrested, maintained his innocence and pointed a finger at the criminal-courts system that took a quarter-century to bring him to trial.

“The man who killed Eric Rice has now more freedom than he ever had in the past 25 years,” he said.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bruce Cohen carefully listened to the comments from both sides and paused before he passed

(Steven) Humelhans was found guilty of first-degree murder on June 20.

down his sentencing.

There is “little doubt that there was someone else of greater culpability,” Cohen said.

But taking into consideration the jury’s verdict, handed up after a trial last month, Cohen sentenced Humelhans to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

Rice’s family members said the day was wonderful and horrible: wonderful because Rice finally had a voice and justice was served to his killer, and horrible because his family had to relive the events of that day.

In the early morning of March 11, 1988, 25-year-old Eric Rice was closing the Domino’s Pizza store where he worked in north Phoenix. Humelhans and another masked gunman barged into the store and forced Eric to open the floor safe at gunpoint, police said.

Humelhans and the gunman emptied the safe and collected about $2,200 in cash and several store checks.

Rice was put into the trunk of the gunman’s car and driven to a remote patch of desert along Interstate17, north of Phoenix, according to police. Rice was shot multiple times and left in the desert.

Rice was spotted later that day by a group of off-road motorists, who found him unconscious. He was transported to a hospital and later died of his in- juries.

Humelhans and the gunman, whom police have not been able to identify, made off with the money from the pizzeria and tossed the checks out of the car.

Detectives were unable to establish a motive in the killing and had very little physical evidence to work with in following years. A few days after the shooting, an officer for the Arizona Department of Public Safety found one of the checks from the store bearing Humelhans’ fingerprint near I-17.

Humelhans was taken into custody in the mid-1990s but released after the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office decided the check with Humelhans’ fingerprint was insufficient evidence for a conviction.

Eric Rice’s case would col- lect dust for the next 15 years.

In 2008, Phoenix police started to add new members to their cold-case squad and began reviewing nearly 2,500 cases dating to the 1950s, including Rice’s.

After a witness came forward alleging Humelhans confessed the killing, he was detained on April 16, 2012, at his home in Illinois and extradited to Arizona by Phoenix police. He claimed he was not involved in the shooting, authorities said.

Humelhans was found guilty of first-degree murder on June 20.

On Monday, a small congregation of Humelhans’ immediate family sat across the courtroom from Rice’s niece.

Rice’s mother was not in attendance, but his niece was ac- companied by a handful of friends and told the judge about the case’s impact on the Rice family.

Humelhans’ family spoke of the man he has become, not the 17-year-old involved in Rice’s shooting.

“Steven has made mistakes in his life, we all know that, mostly because of drugs,” said Humelhans’ mother, Barbara, adding that her son has changed in the past 25 years and that he did not act alone.

“The person responsible for Eric’s death is walking free,” she said.

The family did not dispute Humelhans’ involvement in the robbery 25 years ago, but they asked the judge to be lenient in his sentencing.