Donuts Restaurant Double Murder: Jury
Continues Discussing Punishment
Madonna Devasahayam in Washington
The jury in Prince George County continued discussing for the second day whether the man described as the ring leader in a robbery that ended with the shooting of two Indian immigrants and
seriously injuring the third, should get a death sentence. The jury discussion
began on June 21.
"We have asked for the death penalty and we hope the jury
decides on it," said John Maloney, the prosecutor. Trone Tryrone Ashford, 26, has
stoutly denied that he was the one who shot the men in a 24-hour Dunkin
Donuts restaurant in Camp Spring, on the outskirts of Washington DC.
But the jury would not accept his argument and his assertion
that he was hiding in the bathroom when his friend John Lemon Epps, 20,
robbed and killed the two men, Mukesh Patel and Kanu Patel and left the
third one, Ashwin Patel, for dead.
Maloney had told the jurors last week, Ashford and Epps
poured gasoline inside the building. They ignited it, committing "a crime of
unimaginable horror". They had hoped to destroy any evidence pointing
to their involvement in the crime, the prosecutor had said.
Maloney said the police found the weapon used
in the crime at Ashford's home, and though Ashford first told the investigators he knew nothing
of the attack, he eventually owned up to the killings.
One of Ashford's co-defendants, Alicia N Holloway, 17,
pleaded guilty a few days ago to two counts of felony murder. She snatched money
from a cash register and got $ 25 as her share of the crime, Maloney
said.
Epps's trial will start in about three months; he could also
get a death sentence if found guilty.
Some of the witnesses told the court that they were shocked
by the callousness and shamelessness of the three accused.
Lynette Rosebari testified that she walked into the doughnut
shop the morning of the slayings, apparently as
Ashford and Epps held the victims at gunpoint in the back. Seeing the counter
empty, Rosebari said, she was about to go back to ask for service when a young
black man with an apron around his neck came out to the counter.
The man seemed confused, she recalled. "He told me it was
his first night," she told the court. She also said that she later picked the
man she saw behind the counter from a police photo exhibition.
Maloney said the man was Epps.
Moments later, Epps returned with the shotgun, put it in the car trunk and went back into the store with the can of gasoline.
Ashford and Epps are also charged with killing a Brandywine
man in September.
Ashford, Epps, and Theodore Briscoe, 21, are charged with
shooting to death Brently Jason Youmans, 31, during a carjacking September 13. A
fourth defendant, Donnie Dawayne Comber, 26, was convicted of first-degree
murder in that case last month.
"It was terrible that my men had to be the victims of these
ruthless men," said Jay Patel, the owner of the doughnut shop. The refurbished
shop opened on Sunday.
"This was not their American dream. This kind of nightmare
should not visit anyone -- immigrant or someone born here."
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