Doctor’s killer sentenced to die

Bill Gang

Wednesday, Feb. 12, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Donald Sherman had his chance when he was paroled after serving 11 years in prison for his first murder, but after two years of freedom, he killed again.

A Las Vegas jury late Tuesday said the 32-year-old bespectacled slayer isn't going to get any more chances.

After four hours of deliberations, he was given the death penalty for the 1994 murder of a retired doctor in Sun City.

Sherman sat stoically as the verdict was read, but the doctor's son, Bruce Bauer, broke down crying. He had testified at the trial and the penalty hearing and had patiently awaited for the final resolution to the case.

Lester Bauer was beaten to death with a hammer as he slept on May 29, 1994, by the killer, who had slipped in through an unlocked window.

Sherman had dated Bauer's daughter, Diane, and tasted the good life that came from the doctor's wealth, but the relationship ended bitterly.

Testimony indicated Sherman traveled to Las Vegas from Washington state for his deadly deed and then looted the doctor's home of its valuables. He loaded them into Bauer's car for an eventual trip to Santa Barbara, Calif., where he was found passed out behind the wheel, the engine running and the radio blaring.

During closing arguments in the penalty hearing Tuesday, District Attorney Stewart Bell told the jury that Sherman deserved the death penalty not just for the pair of murders, but also because of his actions after his arrest.

Sherman was caught with a "shank," a homemade knife, in his jail cell and had plotted an elaborate escape that could have resulted in the murders of three people, Bell said.

The plot involved an attempt to hire a hitman to ambush two guards who would be taking him to an optometrist's office. That doctor also was targeted for death in the scheme that was thwarted when a fellow inmate informed corrections officers.

Defense attorney David Schieck downplayed the shank as something that could have been left by a prior prisoner and wrote off the escape story as "all talk."

State Deputy Public Defender Nancy Lemcke described Sherman as "a man spiraling out of control" when he murdered Bauer and said he deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison but need not be executed.

Sherman was no problem to prison officials in Idaho where he was sent at age 18, she said. There he taught illiterate prisoners how to read, Lemcke said as she emotionally begged the jury for mercy.

But Deputy District Attorney David Roger countered that the jury should focus on the victim as well as the defendant, saying Bauer "didn't deserve what he got."

Roger took a slap at Idaho parole officials who released Sherman from prison at age 29 after 11 years behind bars.

"If Donald Sherman had been in prison, Lester Bauer would still be alive," he said.

Roger called Sherman "a violent and dangerous ... morally corrupt person who took life twice and will take it again."

"The decision is an easy one," the prosecutor told the jury. "There is only one punishment that fits the defendant.

"The Legislature has said that people who kill and kill again, they are the worst of the worst."

In the end, the jury agreed and handed Sherman the death penalty.

He will be formally sentenced on March 13 by District Judge Stephen Huffaker, who can add on a 25-year sentence for Sherman's convictions on burglary and robbery charges.