U.S.

Pittsburgh Shooter Gets Death Penalty

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

May 11, 2001 / 5:47 PM EDT / CBS

An unemployed immigration lawyer was sentenced to death Friday for killing five people in a racially motivated shooting spree in suburban Pittsburgh last year.

Richard Baumhammers, 35, was sentenced by the same jury that found him guilty of the April 28, 2000 attacks on Wednesday. Jurors had the option of giving him life in prison without parole.

Baumhammers showed no expression when the verdict was announced.

Prosecutors said Baumhammers, who is white, selected his victims because of their ethnic backgrounds. They said he was against non-white immigration and wanted to "do something about it."

Killed in the rampage were Baumhammers' Jewish neighbor, two Asian men, and Indian man and a black man. Another man of Indian descent was critically wounded.

Defense attorneys for Baumhammers asked jurors to spare his life and questioned whether it was "necessary to put a mental cripple to death."

"In our society it is not your function to administer revenge. It is your function to administer justice," defense attorney James Wymard told jurors before sentencing. "It is not justice to kill someone who is mentally ill."

Prosecutor Ed Borkowski acknowledged that Baumhammers was mentally ill but said he was "controlled, deliberate, calculating and selective" in picking his victims, avoiding attention and eluding police.

During the trial, psychiatrists testified that Baumhammers was tormented by delusions that the FBI and CIA were following him, that the family maid was a spy and that his skin was peeling off.

Andrejs Baumhammers, breaking down in tears, told jurors Thursday that his son's mental illness had turned their lives and his into a living hell since 1993.

"It's been a long, long struggle of six-and-a-half years," he said.

Borkowski called 15 witnesses he hoped would convince the jury that the effects of Baumhammers' crimes outweigh those of any mental illness he may have.

Annette Gordan, the daughter of Anita Gordon, 63, - Baumhammers' Jewish neighbor and first victim – said her mother's death has left her to care for her "devastated " father.

"My father doesn't really have the ability even to make a cheese sandwich," she said.

Zetta Lee said she tries not to cry about the death of her son Garry Lee in front of her 10-year-old daughter.

"My only time to really cry is when I'm going back and forth to work because I want to make sure that she's strong," she said.

Baumhammers becomes the 241st person on Pennsylvania's death row. Three people have been executed in the state since 1995.