Sikia Smith convicted in four slayings

Bill Gang

Friday, June 25, 1999 | 11:30 a.m.

It took a District Court jury just three hours of deliberations to convict 19-year-old Sikia Smith of first-degree murder for his part in the execution slayings of four young men.

There actually was never a question that Smith was involved in the carefully orchestrated robbery in August that was supposed to net about $6,000 and a cache of drugs.

Smith admitted his involvement in a statement to Metro Police homicide detectives several days later.

The question for the jury in District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski's courtroom was whether Smith was mentally impaired to the point where he did not understand right from wrong or the consequences of his actions.

The jury today said Smith knew what he was doing.

The same jury will meet next week for a penalty hearing to determine if Smith should be executed by lethal injection or sent to prison for life with or without the possibility of parole.

The defense had argued that Smith's mental limitations meant he could not be held accountable for the murders, but also offered jurors something of a compromise by suggesting a second-degree murder verdict might be appropriate.

Again the jury said, No.

During closing arguments Thursday, Deputy District Attorney Gary Guymon pointed the jury to Smith's tape-recorded confession in which he admitted he and others involved in the case plotted the holdup and conceded that the victims would have to be killed because they knew the bandits.

The four victims were bound with duct tape and laid out on the floor of the home near Nellis Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue while the bandits ransacked the place looking for cash and drugs.

In the end, only about $200 in cash and a few pills were found.

But before the robbers left, a bullet was fired into the head of each victim -- Jeffrey Biddle, 19, Tracey Gorringe, 20, Matthew Mowen, 19, and Peter Talamantez, 17 -- by the triggerman Smith identified as 19-year-old Donte Johnson.

He and 19-year-old Terrell Cochise Young are awaiting their own murder trials later this year. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against each.