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Jury recommends third death sentence for Tampa cop-killer Dontae Morris

 
The jury voted 10-2 to recommend a sentence of death for Dontae Morris in the slaying of Derek Anderson, who was killed by a gunshot to the back while he was carrying his laundry to his mother's apartment in 2010. [SKIP O'ROURKE | Times]
The jury voted 10-2 to recommend a sentence of death for Dontae Morris in the slaying of Derek Anderson, who was killed by a gunshot to the back while he was carrying his laundry to his mother's apartment in 2010. [SKIP O'ROURKE | Times]
Published July 31, 2015

TAMPA — The jury that found Dontae Morris guilty of killing Derek Anderson decided Thursday that his murderer should be sent to a very familiar place: Florida's death row.

The jury voted 10-2 to recommend a sentence of death in Anderson's slaying. It is the third time a jury has chosen death for Morris, one of Tampa Bay's most infamous cop killers.

Morris, 29, already is on death row for the murders of two Tampa police officers, is serving a life sentence for a fourth murder and awaits trial for a fifth murder.

Anderson, 20, was killed by a gunshot to the back while he was carrying his laundry to his mother's east Tampa apartment. Wanda Gilchrist found her son bleeding outside her front door on May 18, 2010.

After she heard the jury's decision Thursday, she walked out of the courtroom with a long-awaited sense of relief.

"It's been a long five years," she said. "Maybe now I can sleep at night."

In Florida, juries can recommend a death sentence. But it will ultimately be up to Hillsborough Circuit Judge William Fuente to sentence Morris to death or to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A sentencing date for Morris has not yet been set. The judge told both sides to return to court on Sept. 4 to discuss other matters, including what will be Morris' fourth murder trial for the June 8, 2010, slaying of Harold Wright. No date for that trial has been set.

The jury in the Anderson case deliberated over three days before finding Morris guilty of first-degree murder on Wednesday. They reconvened Thursday for the sentencing phase.

For the first time, jurors learned that Morris already has been convicted of killing three other people, including the two police officers.

In the courtroom, the jury watched those officers die.

They saw the video from the dashboard camera of Tampa police Officer David Curtis' patrol cruiser, which recorded the moment when Morris pointed a gun at the faces of Curtis and Officer Jeffrey Kocab and killed both on June 29, 2010.

Jaws dropped. Hands rose to mouths. Jurors jolted in their seats. Some shed tears.

Four faces — Anderson, Curtis, Kocab and another murder victim, Rodney Jones — were displayed on poster-sized photos in the courtroom as Assistant State Attorney Scott Harmon told the jury why Morris should be put to death. Jones was shot and killed on May 31, 2010.

"These photographs are simply echoes of what once was," Harmon said. "To this defendant, these four precious human beings were simply targets. Targets of opportunity. Targets of domination. And targets that got in the way."

In making its case, the state relied on a single "aggravating circumstance" — that Morris was previously convicted of capital felonies in three murders — which they said justified a death sentence.

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That alone, Harmon said, should greatly outweigh the "mitigating circumstances" that the defense presented to the jury in a bid to spare Morris' life.

The defense called upon Morris' relatives and friends to testify about his troubled upbringing and the loving relationship he has maintained with his 9-year-old son, Dontae Morris Jr.

They showed pictures of Dontae Morris as a child — one sitting atop a wooden horse, another seated with his younger stepsiblings, all flashing broad smiles. They spoke of how he excelled in football, how his mother, Selecia Watson, helped coach his track team. They spoke of his mother's divorce from his stepfather, and how he eventually dropped out of school.

Defense attorney Byron Hileman implored jurors to look to their own moral compass in deciding whether Dontae Morris should die.

"I suggest that you consider that killing that is not necessary is wrong," Hileman said. "You must answer: Is this the right thing? . . . You can recommend death, or you can look to the future and say let the killing stop here."

It took the jury less than an hour to recommend the death penalty.

Contact Dan Sullivan at dsullivan@tampabay.com or (813) 226-3386. Follow @TimesDan.