SERIAL KILLER ON DEATH ROW FOR THIRD TIME

Mar 4, 6:22 AM (ET)
By WILLIAM McCALL

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A jury recommended Friday that Oregon's most prolific serial killer be sent back to death row for a third time.

Dayton Leroy Rogers tortured and killed a total of eight women in 1987, binding them with dog collars and coat hangers, stabbing them repeatedly and mutilating them - possibly while some were still alive.

The Clackamas County jury was unanimous in its death sentences for six of those murders.

Judge Ronald Thom will decide later whether to accept the recommendation, after hearing from families of the victims.

Two previous juries had sentenced Rogers to death but the Oregon Supreme Court overturned the sentences, in one case ruling that the jury must be given the option of sentencing Rogers to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Under Oregon law, a conviction for aggravated murder requires a separate sentencing trial and jury verdict on whether to impose the death sentence, life without parole, or life with a chance for parole after 30 years.
The jury ignored Rogers' claim that he was a changed man after 18 years in prison.

The former lawn mower repairman on Thursday delivered an allocution - a formal statement by a defendant to the court, often to admit guilt and take responsibility for a crime in hopes of more lenient sentencing.

"There is never a day that I don't struggle from the very core of my heart and soul over the despicable acts I've committed," Rogers said.

Defense attorneys capped the three-week trial in Oregon City on Thursday by asking jurors to take his childhood into account, saying Rogers was beaten by a father who also killed family pets by gassing them or running them over with a car.

But prosecutors argued that Rogers is a manipulator, not the remorseful man depicted by the defense.
"Mr. Rogers knows what it's like to put a knife into a human body, to cut through the meat," said John Wentworth, a deputy district attorney.