Chilling Testimony During Penalty Phase In Execution-Style Murder Case
By Tony Hanson
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Having already convicted defendant Omar Cash of murdering a man in an unprovoked attack in April, 2008, a Philadelphia jury, considering the death penalty, heard chilling testimony on Tuesday of other crimes committed by the killer. The jury has learned Cash is already serving a life sentence for another murder.
It took the jury just a half hour last week to find Cash, 32, guilty of murdering 19-year-old Maliek Brown after considering the evidence, including surveillance video of the crime.
The video shows Cash walk up to Brown, put a gun to the back of his head and fire. The victim was down on his hands and knees shining the tires on his car at a car wash when he was executed.
The jury has now heard that just a few weeks after Cash killed Brown, he committed a carjacking, murdered a man, repeatedly raped his finance, before she escaped.
In court, the woman, speaking through a Portuguese interpreter, began sobbing at the start of testimony, but told of the horror in gut-wrenching detail.
"The defendant car-jacks them, then proceeds to rape her," says prosecutor Carlos Vega. "But since she can't speak English, he was instructing the fiance on what sexual acts she had to perform on him."
Vega says up until she took the stand, the woman was afraid to testify.
"She promised for the sake of her finance, and for the sake of the gentleman, Mr. Brown, who was killed, she would do it," says Vega. "It was very painful, but she got through it."
Cash, picking at his fingernails the entire session, showed no emotion, no reaction.
These other crimes are a so-called "aggravating factor" that could result in the death penalty.
