Man Who Killed 2 He
Met at Gay Bar
Gets 2 Consecutive
Life Sentences
By JOHN HOLL, from
the NYTimes on the web, January 28, 2006
TOMS RIVER, N.J., Jan. 27 —
Tracey Mulcahy was 18 when she learned that her father had been murdered.
She said on Friday that she prayed he had been shot.
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Laura Pedrick for The New York Times
Richard W.
Rogers, who was convicted of two murders, at sentencing Friday. |
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Laura Pedrick for The New York Times
One of his
victims in the early 1990's was Thomas Mulcahy, whose widow,
Margaret, and daughter Tracey were in the courtroom in Toms River,
N.J. |
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"Somehow that seemed to be the
quickest method, somehow seemed more humane," Ms. Mulcahy, now 32, said as she
blinked back tears at the sentencing of her father's killer in State Superior
Court here. "Needless to say, my prayers weren't answered."
The killer, Richard Rogers Jr., stood silently in shackles in the crowded
courtroom as family members of one of his two victims spoke of their loss and
anger before a judge sentenced him to two consecutive life terms in prison.
Mr. Rogers, 55, was found guilty of two counts of murder last November. He
had picked up his two victims — Thomas Mulcahy, 57, and Anthony Marrero, 44 — in
gay bars in Manhattan in 1992 and 1993, stabbed them to death, dismembered them,
then left their body parts in green plastic trash bags along southern New Jersey
highways.
He is a suspect in at least two similar killings. The dismembered bodies
of those victims were found in trash bags in Pennsylvania and in Rockland
County, New York.
"In one instance he altered the course of my life and nothing has ever been the
same," another of Mr. Mulcahy's daughters, Susan, 40, said as her voice cracked
with emotion. "He destroyed the anchor of our family and many of the
dreams we had for the future. In 1992 my father missed the one thing that
we both had looked forward to my whole life: walking me down the aisle on
my wedding day."
Mr. Mulcahy, a computer salesman and married father of four from Massachusetts,
was on business when he met Mr. Rogers at the Townhouse, an upscale gay bar on
East 58th Street near Third Avenue.
Tracey Mulcahy, who lives in Boston, noted that during the course of the trial
details of her father's alcoholism and homosexuality emerged, which she called
"aspects of his life that he tried desperately to keep separate from his
family."
She added, "But more than anything he was a loving father."
Mr. Marrero's family declined to address the court.
Before the sentencing began, Mr. Rogers, dressed in a red prison uniform, stared
at the nearly 50 people in the courtroom and made eye contact with several
reporters and witnesses. During the sentencing, however, he stood in the
empty jury box, appearing emotionless and avoiding eye contact with his victims'
families and the judge.
Mr. Rogers, a surgical nurse from Staten Island, was arrested in 2001 after
forensics technology was able to lift faint fingerprints from the trash bags
that contained the body parts. His prints had been on file in Maine from a
1973 murder trial in which Mr. Rogers, claiming self-defense, was acquitted of
charges that he had killed his housemate with a hammer.
Mr. Rogers declined to make a statement before sentencing, but answered in a
loud, clear voice when Judge James N. Citta asked him if he understood the
proceedings and was sure that he did not want to address the court. His
lawyer, David Ruhnke, said before the sentencing that his client would appeal
the convictions.
Judge Citta said he wanted it to be clear that Mr. Rogers was being sentenced to
consecutive life terms because he was found guilty of two separate murders.
"They are separate victims, separate and distinct times. Separate crimes
and separate punishments are not only allowed under our law but demanded in this
case," Judge Citta said. "To do less would diminish the horror."
Mr. Rogers was sentenced to an additional 10 years in jail for hindering
apprehension by disposing of the bodies.
"You are an evil human being," Judge Citta told Mr. Rogers. "It is
difficult, even in today's world where there is war and there is death and
destruction, to imagine what takes place in the mind of a human being that would
cause them to do what you did to these two human beings."
Then, Judge Citta looked menacingly at Mr. Rogers before ordering deputies to
take him away.
"I will do everything within my power to make sure that you never walk free
again," he said, "that you die in some hole in some prison without ever having
freedom again."
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