‘Megan’s Law’ Killer Gets Death Sentence

NEW YORK — A jury on Friday ordered the execution of Jesse K. Timmendequas, who was earlier found guilty of murdering and raping 7-year-old Megan Kanka--a crime that launched a successful national campaign for public disclosure when convicted sex offenders move into neighborhoods. The jury of six men and six women, deliberating for 10 hours over two days, rejected arguments that the 36-year-old defendant should be spared the death penalty because he was irreparably scarred by his childhood.

As the jury entered the courtroom, Megan’s parents clasped hands. Maureen Kanka began to cry and buried her face in her husband Richard’s shoulder when the jury announced that Timmendequas, a thrice-convicted sexual predator, should die by lethal injection. Timmendequas shook when the verdict was read.

Friends of the Kanka family and relatives of the slain child also cried, as did several jurors.

Outside the courthouse in Trenton, N.J., people applauded.

Superior Court Judge Andrew J. Smithson set Aug. 1 as the execution date for Timmendequas, but appeals of the sentence will take years, lawyers said.

“Today, justice has been served,” said New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.

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“Megan’s death was a tragedy for all of us,” Whitman said. “Her family has demonstrated incredible strength and determination by turning their personal loss into a positive campaign to protect other children.”

On May 30, the same jury convicted Timmendequas of murdering and raping Megan after luring the girl, with the promise of seeing a puppy, into the home he shared with two other convicted sex offenders across the street from the Kanka family’s residence.

That verdict set the stage for the penalty phase, in which the defense portrayed Timmendequas as an unwanted child who was beaten and raped regularly by his father.

Carol Krych, a social worker called by the defense, told the jury that Timmendequas’ mother beat him and once broke his arm with a wooden stick that family members called “the equalizer.”

In a videotape played for the jury, Timmendequas’ brother, Paul, said he remembered the defendant screaming when he was locked up with his father.

Defense lawyers painted a grim portrait of an extremely dysfunctional, psychopathic family.

Roy B. Greenman, a member of the Timmendequas defense team, said that even before his client was born, a social worker described the family’s environment as a “regular Tobacco Road situation.”

Krych said that before the birth, Timmendequas’ mother lived for a time in a car with two of her children.

Seeking to prevent the death penalty, Timmendequas read a short statement to the jury.

“OK I am sorry for what I’ve done to Megan,” he said. “I pray for her and her family every day. I have to live with this and what I’ve done for the rest of my life.

“I ask you to let me live so I, someday, I can understand and have an understanding why something like this could happen.”

Prosecutors presented an opposite portrait of Timmendequas and attacked the credibility of his brother’s videotaped testimony.

A police investigator testified that Paul Timmendequas told him that he exaggerated what he said because he was pressured by the defense and wanted to help his brother.

Sgt. Dean Raymond said he had interviewed Paul Timmendequas eight times, and on five occasions he told different stories regarding whether there were sexual assaults in the family.

“On behalf of the state, we do not beg, we do not plead, we do not implore, we ask for justice,” prosecutor Kathryn Flicker told the jury in closing arguments. “And in this case, justice should be death.”

She said that the acts Timmendequas committed were “purposeful, intentional and inexcusable.”

Repeating testimony from the earlier part of the trial, Flicker told how Megan was lured into the house in Hamilton Township, N.J., on July 29, 1994, and then murdered.

“Megan had become a walking, talking piece of evidence,” the prosecutor charged. “She knew him. She could identify him. he knew it and he had to get rid of that threat. And so he did.”

Before deciding on the death penalty, the jury had to unanimously find at least one aggravating factor in the crime. Prosecutors offered two--that the murder happened during a kidnapping or rape and that it took place to avoid arrest or detection.

Jurors then had to weigh the aggravating factors against 25 mitigating factors--issues of character and background--the defense presented.

After Megan’s murder, her family campaigned to require public notice when convicted sex offenders move into communities.

With members of Megan’s family attending ceremonies in the Oval Office, President Clinton signed a law on May 17, 1996, ordering that states enact such statutes or risk losing federal funds.