HOT SPRINGS -- A Garland County Circuit Court jury deliberated for just under three hours Thursday before sentencing a Pearcy man to death by lethal injection for the 2011 shooting death of a Hot Springs woman, his third murder conviction since 1978.
Randy William Gay, 56, was convicted Tuesday of capital murder in the May 10, 2011, death of Connie Ann Snow, 49, after the nine-woman, three-man jury had deliberated for about 30 minutes.
After testimony Wednesday and closing arguments Thursday, the jury recommended a sentence of death, which was accepted by Judge John Homer Wright.
Wright denied a last-minute motion by Gay's attorney, Mark Fraiser, to set the recommendation aside in favor of a sentence of life in prison without parole. After Wright formally sentenced Gay -- who showed no reaction when the verdict was read -- Gay said, "Take care, judge," and Wright replied, "You, too."
"We've been waiting for this for 1,437 days," Snow's daughter, Mary Beth Snow Lansdell, said moments after the verdict was announced. "My family can finally move on now, and my mother finally has justice."
Lansdell said she was happy not only for her mother but also for "the rest of his victims. He'll never be able to hurt anyone else ever again, not even in prison."
Gay had two previous convictions for second-degree murder: one in the 1978 shooting death of his father-in-law, James Kelly, and another in the 1991 shooting death of his own father, Glen Harold Gay.
Even though Gay's sentence sets off an automatic appeals process that could take many years, Lansdell said, "We've waited a long time to get to where we're at today. This has been a long time coming."
Prosecuting Attorney Terri Harris thanked the jurors, who sat through seven days of "graphic testimony" and had to consider more than 70 mitigating circumstances presented by Gay's attorneys, along with the three aggravating circumstances presented by the prosecution -- his two prior murder convictions and a felony terroristic threatening conviction in 2008.
"This is not something that anyone takes great relish in, but based on the verdict I think justice has been served," Harris said. "The family can finally have some closure now. We've been working on this case for three and a half years."
In her closing remarks to the jury, Harris went back over Wednesday's testimony about Kelly, "a father, grandfather and musician who died a violent death at the age of 41" at the hands of Gay.
She also noted the defense presented testimony about the abusive nature of Glen Gay toward his son. "The disconcerting part of the case was the attempt to minimize that murder and Randy Gay's reasoning behind why he killed his own father.
"[Glen Gay] got beaten up in court and was not here to defend himself," she said. "Are we supposed to turn a blind eye to a second murder?"
In his closing, Fraiser said there was evidence presented to support every one of the mitigating circumstances involved in the cases, especially concerning Gay's relationship with his father.
He noted testimony that Gay's mother had tried to abort him and then abandoned Gay and his sisters at a young age, before their father grew abusive to them. Even when his father later tried to be his friend, he did so by encouraging him to drink alcohol and ignore his responsibilities.
"I can't conceive what that must have done to a young mind," he said, noting that Gay's father was a big influence on him, which led to them being "too much alike. He didn't start out that way. He was made that way by how he was raised and treated."
Fraiser noted that Gay was always a model prisoner during his previous prison terms and had qualified for parole each time. "This indicates that [Gay] functions best in a controlled environment where he is not allowed to be around alcohol because alcohol is the thread that goes through this whole case."
He noted before the jury's deliberation that Gay "will never leave the Department of Correction alive. He is there now and will remain there until he is pronounced dead. It's up to you to decide if that day will be decided by God or by the state of Arkansas."
In her rebuttal, Harris noted that "a lot of kids have been treated worse than [Gay] growing up. His father was strict. There's nothing exotic or unusual about being raised in that environment. There was no evidence of him showing up at school with black eyes or bruises."
She said his abuse of alcohol was "a life choice" he made to avoid reality and facing "the day to day problems we all have to live with. That's a choice we all make."
She said prison was "a substitute parent" for Gay, and if he had obeyed all the rules growing up like he did while in prison "he wouldn't be sitting here today."
She noted prison would not be a punishment for Gay because "that's his home. All you're doing is sending him home."
Harris said Gay "caused the violent deaths of three people for no particular reason." In asking for the death penalty, she told the jury, "The time for leniency for this defendant has come to an end, and it needs to end today."
State Desk on 03/20/2015