SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - A jury ruled Wednesday a man accused of killing a Sioux Falls hospice nurse as part of a plot to assassinate President Barack Obama is eligible for the death penalty.
The sentencing trial of James McVay, 43, will now enter a second phase, in which jurors will decide whether McVay will die by lethal injection or will be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
McVay earlier pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder in the 2011 stabbing of 75-year-old Maybelle Schein. McVay said he killed Schein and stole her car as part of his plan to drive to Washington and kill the president.
Jurors agreed with prosecutors that McVay’s crime met two aggravating circumstances that would allow the state to impose a death sentence. The first deemed the offense outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman; the second found that defendant committed the offense for his own benefit or the benefit of another.
On Thursday, the jury will consider mitigating factors about why McVay’s life should be spared.
Authorities say McVay walked away from a minimum-security prison in July 2011 in Sioux Falls and was mixing cough syrup and alcohol when he climbed under Schein’s slightly open garage door, entered her house, killed her and drove off in her car.
After Schein’s car was reported stolen, police used a tracking service in the vehicle to find McVay on Interstate 90 near Madison, Wis. He and he was arrested after a brief chase.
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