Jury decides on life without parole for second killer

Bill Gang

Thursday, Sept. 23, 1999 | 11:17 a.m.

At age 20 Terrell Cochise Young was told today that the rest of his life will be spent in prison with no chance for parole for his role in the execution slayings of four young men during a home robbery.

The jury that had convicted him last week of first-degree murder was in its fourth day of deliberations when jurors finally agreed on the punishment. The other options had been death by lethal injection or life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Young wasn't alleged to be the shooter who stood over the four duct-taped victims and fired bullets into their heads. Those killed were Tracey Gorringe, 20, Jeffrey Biddle, 19, Matthew Mowen, 19, and Peter Talamantez, 17.

Young, who entered the packed courtroom smiling, listened to the verdict without emotion. Some of the victims' family members cried; one muttered, "Stupid, stupid."

Young's sentence was the same as that already given to 19-year-old Sikia Smith, who was the first of three defendants to stand trial and be convicted. At his trial it was shown his participation was limited to ransacking the house near Tropicana Avenue and Nellis Boulevard in search of cash and drugs.

The alleged triggerman, 19-year-old Donte Johnson, is scheduled to stand trial Jan. 10.

Before returning to the County Courthouse today, jurors had already spent 17 hours over three days trying to agree on the sentence.

When asked by District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski on Wednesday afternoon, the forewoman said the last of 10 votes was 7 to 4 with one juror abstaining. While some family members of the victims believed that foretold a hung jury, the forewoman said she believed that further deliberations may be productive.

It took another three hours over two days to hammer out the decision.

Prosecutors urged the death penalty by calling Young "the worst of the worst" for his role in the robbery on Aug. 14, 1998, that ended in the slayings.

Young confessed to police but said his role was limited to guarding the victims while two others ransacked the house in search of what was believed to be $6,000 in cash and a stash of drugs.

Only about $200 and a few pills were found, according to Young's confession.

During closing arguments last week, Deputy District Attorney Robert Daskas reminded the jury that Young had advocated the murders of the four young victims to keep them from being witnesses, and wanted their two pit bull puppies killed as well.

While prosecutors during closing arguments repeatedly called Young "the worst of the worst," defense attorney Lew Wolfbrandt said the one-time high school star wrestler "was not even the worst of the worst in this case."

In an unsworn statement to the jury last week, Young asked for leniency and said his whole life shouldn't be judged on "three weeks on the wild side."

That period not only involved the quadruple murder, but also his involvement in disposing of a body from another murder, his shooting at two people in a hotel-casino who owed him money from a drug deal and his pulling a pistol on a Nevada Highway Patrol trooper, according to testimony.

Deputy District Attorney Gary Guymon said it wasn't three weeks but three years, dating back to a 1996 incident during which Young and some friends caned a couple of teenage boys to the ground in a supermarket.

Guymon presented a chart emphasizing how that incident, which resulted in a juvenile conviction, started Young on a slide that resulted in deaths and violence in 1998.

Wolfbrandt lamented that Young didn't qualify for a prison Boot Camp Program after one conviction. Such a program might have turned him away from the path to drugs and death that he chose, the attorney said.

Wolfbrandt argued that if Young were given a life sentence rather than the death penalty, he could act as an example of what happens when a person strays to the "wild side."

Guymon countered that if Young is executed, he would be a better example of the fate that awaits those who commit robberies and murders.

Wolfbrandt conceded that even if given the lightest sentence of life with the possibility of parole, Young would be spending the rest of his life in prison.

"The state just wants you to give him a date" through the death sentence, the attorney said.

His voice cracking with emotion, Guymon responded angrily that "Matthew Mowen didn't have a date with death. None of those boys did."

Guymon said that Young should not be considered for a life prison term because he attacked a county jail corrections officer and beat him to the ground a week ago, just minutes after the jury pronounced him guilty of all charges in the quadruple slaying.

Prison guards, the prosecutor argued, should not have to be exposed to that kind of risk.

"The defendant's conduct has displayed that he is unstoppable, that he is still going to harm others."

Although Young has been animated at some earlier hearings, smiling at jurors when he was pronounced guilty and making obscene gestures at newspaper and television cameras, he was relatively sedate at the closing arguments in the penalty hearing Monday.

During jury selection two weeks ago, Young overturned a table and threw documents around the courtroom before he was subdued by bailiffs.

He was fitted with a stun belt -- in essence a remote controlled stun gun -- for later court sessions, but even that didn't stop him.

When he spit on his own lawyers, whom he had criticized for what he said was an inadequate defense and rare visits, Young was zapped into submission. After that there were no more physical outbursts.