HOUSTON (AP) - The Latest on the sentencing of Ronald Haskell who was convicted of capital murder in a Houston-area attack that left six people dead (all times local):
5:35 p.m.
A young woman who was the lone survivor of a 2014 shooting in Texas that claimed the lives of her parents and four siblings told the man sentenced to death for the killings she plans to move forward and forget about him.
Cassidy Stay gave a victim impact statement after jurors on Friday sentenced Ronald Lee Haskell to death for killings her parents.
Stay said she’s no longer preoccupied with whether Haskell will ever feel remorse for what he did and that she will “continue to live my life with happiness.”
Haskell showed no reaction to Stay’s statement.
The now-20-year-old woman was 15 when she was shot in the head in the attack. She testified at trial she survived by playing dead and begged Haskell not to hurt her family.
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4:30 p.m.
A jury has sentenced to death a man who fatally shot six members of his ex-wife’s family in Texas.
Jurors took around four hours Friday to decide that Ronald Lee Haskell would be a future danger to society. They rejected arguments by Haskell’s attorneys that his history of mental illness should spare him the lethal injection.
The same jury in September convicted Haskell of capital murder in the deaths of Stephen and Katie Stay at their suburban Houston home in 2014. Four of the couple’s children were also killed in the attack, and Haskell shot a fifth child who survived by playing dead.
Haskell’s attorneys had asked jurors to sentence the 39-year-old Haskell to life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors argued Haskell faked symptoms of mental illness and carefully planned the attack.
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12:15 p.m.
A jury is deliberating the sentence of a man who was convicted in an attack in which he fatally shot six members of his ex-wife’s family in Texas.
Jurors in the capital murder trial of Ronald Lee Haskell got the case Friday afternoon after closing arguments in the trial’s punishment phase.
Prosecutors are asking for a death sentence. Haskell’s lawyers asked for life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Stephen and Katie Stay and four of their children were killed in the 2014 shooting at their suburban Houston home. A fifth child, Cassidy Stay, was shot in the head but survived.
Stay, who was in court, cried when a prosecutor detailed her family members’ deaths to jurors during closing arguments. A juror also wiped away tears.
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11:05 a.m.
An attorney for a man convicted in an attack in which he fatally shot six members of his ex-wife’s family in Texas says sentencing him to death would amount to vengeance, not justice.
Attorney Neal Davis III asked jurors during closing arguments Friday to spare the life of 39-year-old Ronald Lee Haskell, arguing they should sentence him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Haskell was convicted of capital murder last month in the 2014 attack that left six members of the Stay family dead in their Houston-area home. Davis says Haskell deserves to “die in prison” and spend the rest of his life thinking about what he has done.
Doug Durham, another defense attorney, said anger, hatred, fear and vengeance are at the heart of prosecutors’ arguments for a death sentence.
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10:30 a.m.
A prosecutor is asking jurors to sentence to death a man who fatally shot six members of his ex-wife’s family in Texas.
Prosecutor Samantha Knecht said Friday during closing arguments in the punishment phase of Ronald Lee Haskell’s capital murder trial that “this is the moment for justice” for Haskell’s victims.
As she talked to jurors, Knecht placed bullet casings for each of the six victims in front of the jury and more than 20 bullets for other family members that Knecht said Haskell also wanted to kill.
The same jury last month convicted Haskell of capital murder for the deaths of a couple at their suburban Houston home. Also killed in the 2014 attack were four of their children. A fifth child was shot but survived by playing dead.
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