Posted on 03/08/2015 6:34:58 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Perry Strader said he has long lived in the shadow cast by his family helping Bobbie New cover up killing Dorothy Spencer in 1976, and he promised his mother on her death bed nearly five years ago he would bring closure to Spencer’s family.
“I told her before she died,” he said. “I told her I was going to make this SOB pay for what he did and she smiled and said, ‘Good.’ ”
On Friday, New, Strader’s uncle, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 15-years-to-life in prison. New, now 73, lowered his head as the verdict was announced and declined to speak before Lorain County Common Pleas Judge John Miraldi imposed the sentence. Because New was sentenced under the law in effect in the 1970s, he will be eligible for good time and may be able to seek parole before he has served his full sentence, the judge said.
Lynette Burgess, one of Spencer’s daughters, called New “a coward, a woman beater, a murderer” during the hearing.
She said New should have just walked away from the argument with Spencer that prosecutors contend led to New beating and shooting Spencer once in the head in the Camden Township mobile home they shared on March 13, 1976. Burgess said it wasn’t the first time New had brutalized Spencer, who stayed away from her children because of the abuse.
“You and my mother were together for several years,” Burgess said. “She loved you and lived in fear.”
Burgess also said that New also would be judged in the afterlife.
“I’ve asked God to help me forgive you, but I can’t,” Burgess said. “… My final wish for you is that you rot in hell for eternity.”
New’s lawyers said their client will appeal. Defense attorney Richard McClure said the legal challenge to New’s conviction will likely focus on the length of time it took to bring the murder charge against New, who was indicted in 2011.
“It’s not over,” defense lawyer Gerald Smith, who has represented New since the 1970s, said.
The case has already been thrown out once because of what is known in legal parlance as pre-indictment delay, but an appeals court reversed county Common Pleas Judge James Burge’s decision to dismiss the case.
Although New was a suspect almost as soon as the badly wounded Spencer was found in the home about 2:30 a.m. March 14, 1976, a grand jury declined to indict him in the 1970s. Spencer died from her injuries three days after she was found. The cold case was dusted off when Strader came forward to county sheriff’s deputies in 2010 and said he and his now-deceased parents, Ezra and Zula Strader, had helped his uncle cover up his involvement in the killing.
During his testimony earlier this week, Strader told the jury that his mother woke him up that night as she hid in a closet with a flashlight and a phone book. He later heard her make a phone call and went out into the living room where he heard New say he had beaten and shot Spencer because she was “running her lip.”
Strader also made a call to New in 2010 that was recorded by deputies and played for the jury. In the call, Strader told a false story about how his mother had left a letter detailing her family’s involvement in the killing and cover up that was to be sent to prosecutors upon her death.
New discussed several details of the incident during his conversation with Strader, but never directly admitted to involvement.
McClure argued during closing statements earlier in the day that Strader was motivated by anger at New for not helping to care for Zula Strader as she was dying. There was a confrontation at the cemetery between the two men just days before Strader contacted law enforcement.
“He was madder than hell at Bobbie New,” McClure said.
But Assistant County Prosecutor Sherry Glass said a family dispute wasn’t motive to frame someone for murder. “He was upset, but ask yourself, is that enough to conjure up murder charges that just so happen to be corroborated by other evidence?” Glass asked jurors.
Deputies years ago traced the call asking that an ambulance be sent to Spencer’s mobile home, which didn’t have a phone, back to the Straders’ home. A neighbor also said she remembered hearing dogs barking the night of the shooting and saw New’s Ford Ranchero parked outside the trailer.
“Barking dogs do not prove somebody murdered somebody,” McClure later said.
New’s lawyers have long held up former bartender Patricia Lambert, who has maintained that New was drinking at the Honky Tonk Bar the night of the shooting, as proof Strader wasn’t telling the truth. She testified in 2012 that New arrived between 11 p.m. and midnight and stayed until the bar closed. After that, Lambert, said, she went out for breakfast with New and two other friends until sometime after 4 a.m.
Glass said that New was a regular at the Honky Tonk who often went out to breakfast with Lambert and the Florida retiree was mistaken about what night the breakfast happened. She urged jurors to convict New.
“Dorothy Spencer matters,” Glass said. “Dottie doesn’t deserve to be Bobbie New’s dirty little secret.”
These events apparently took place in Lorain county, Ohio.
Why not death?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.