'Pure Evil' Killer Gets Life Plus 100 Years In 2013 North Bay Triple Murder
SANTA ROSA (CBS SF) -- The family members of two of the three men who were killed execution-style during a marijuana deal in Sonoma County three years ago castigated the killer of their loved ones before he was sentenced to multiple life sentences Wednesday morning.
Michael Capello, 49, of Boulder, Colo. was convicted in March of the 2013 triple murder.
"It's over for you, you're done. I hope it gets to the point where you want to kill yourself. I hope you kill yourself," said Robert Lewin, 63, of New York, the brother of victim Richard Lewin, 46, of Huntington, New York.
"This man is pure evil. I requested the death penalty. I want to see this man dead," Lewin said in Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Robert LaForge's courtroom.
Leslie King, 61, the mother of victim Raleigh Butler, 26, of Truckee, said her family asked the district attorney's office to take the death penalty off the table, but she told Cappello he deserved to die.
"True evil exists and I feel I am looking at it when I look at you. I shove all your evil back to you where it belongs," King said.
Minutes later, LaForge sentenced Cappello to three consecutive life state prison terms without the possibility of parole for the murders, plus 100 years to life and six years and eight months for gun enhancements and lesser charges. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.
A jury deliberated less than six hours before convicting him on March 25 of the shooting murders of Lewin, Butler and Todd Klarkowski, 42, of Boulder, Colorado in Butler's family's cabin in Forestville on Feb. 5, 2013.
The panel also found true enhancements alleging murder while lying in wait, for financial gain and during a robbery.
Cappello recruited two men to drive their truck from his home in Central City, Colorado, to Sonoma County to pick up the marijuana Lewin and Klarkowski were buying from him and to transport it back to Colorado and eventually to New York.
While Butler, Lewin and Klarkowski were packaging the estimated 100 pounds of marijuana for transport in the bedroom of the cabin, Cappello shot each of them once in the head and left with cash and the pot in his Ford Bronco.
Odin Dwyer, 41, a Denver-area resident, witnessed the shooting and helped load 69 pounds of marijuana into Cappello's truck. He testified Cappello told him the murders "had to be done."
Dwyer and his father, Francis Dwyer, 71, of New Mexico drove back to Colorado with the marijuana. Both also were charged with the murders and conspiracy but agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges for lighter sentences and to testify against Cappello at the trial.
Defense attorney Joseph Stogner tried to convince the jury the Dwyers were the killers. The Dwyers and Cappello were arrested and in custody by March 1, 2013.
Butler's brother Dylan also addressed Cappello in court.
"It is unbelievable ... unbelievable you thought that you could pull this off and get away with it," he said. "You ripped our family apart in the worst possible way for greed."
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