Lawyers for two of the defendants tried to paint it as a typical voluntary manslaughter - the kind of killing done in a sudden fit of rage. But as U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Greene said when sentencing the killers to 10-year terms, it was "unusually heinous, cruel, brutal."
Reuben Cuch Jr., 17, and Bobby Redcap, 18, were sentenced last week for their parts in the death of Benjie Murray on July 3, 1996. The killing happened during a drinking spree in the Fort Duchesne vicinity of the Uintah-Ourray Indian Reservation, and because it was on Northern Ute tribal land it went to federal court.Murray had gone into Redcap's grandmother's house, where the four were drinking. He began calling names and a fight started. It swiftly turned into torture.
Murray, 24, was killed during a horrific hourlong ordeal in which the killers repeatedly kicked, stomped, jumped on and punched him - until one of them cut his throat with a kitchen knife. Then three of them tilted a 360-pound stove onto Murray, supposedly to hide his body.
Co-defendants Werrenell Cuch, 23, and Gregory Checora, 19, also got the statutory maximum of 10 years in prison earlier The four originally were indicted on a charge of second-degree murder and could have faced at least 30 years in prison. But outside their own testimony, the evidence was scanty, and they were allowed to plead guilty to the lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter.
In addition to the prison time, the four were ordered to pay restitution of $10,165, with money going to the Ute Tribe, a state fund for crime victims and the State Division of Child and Family Services.
During the sentencings, Murray's relatives and friends - including his mother, Gloria Jim - listened to the gruesome details.
All four were much bigger than the victim, who stood only 5 feet, 3 inches and weighed 150 pounds. But as Greene read from a transcript of statements the defendants made when they pleaded guilty, it was clear that they had brutalized their former friend in a terrible manner.
"He was most of the time on the ground whimpering," Greene said. He quoted from the statement Reuben Cuch made in which he admitted hitting and kicking him in the face and on the body. At that time, Greene had asked how many times Cuch kicked him on the body.
"I don't know how many times on the body," Cuch replied, according to the transcript. "I stomped him on his head . . . like stomping on a bug or something. We were all doing it. . . . We were just kicking him and hitting him."
The coroner found Murray's injuries were so extensive he couldn't tell exactly what killed him. The victim's jaw was broken, and he had many other injuries besides the slashed throat.
Greene said the four had pressed "a serious, prolonged assault."
Jerome Mooney, representing Reuben Cuch, had argued against giving the youth such a long sentence that he will end up spending much time in an adult prison. He said that would add to the tragedy.
"Yes, it's a tragedy," Greene said. "It's a horrible, heinous murder. It's been pleaded as a voluntary manslaughter - so regarded here. But that doesn't change what happened. It may be tough to grow up to be an adult (in prison). It's even tougher to not grow up at all."
James C. Bradshaw, representing Redcap, said, "This is a horrible crime. . . . But in the universe of homicides, this is not a particularly evil or heinous and vicious homicide."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Felice J. Viti, however, said the killers formed "a kind of wolf pack against the weakest and most vulnerable."
Greene disagreed with Bradshaw on the heinousness of the killing. He noted that it "lasted for at least an hour - multiple kicking the head, stomping the head, kicking the side . . . numerous physical injuries."
Gloria Jim spoke before the sentencings: "All I would like to say is I feel sorry for the guys, and I already told you about my boy because he's not here. . . . Everything would have been all right if they would have just beat him up. He would still be here."