Gary Lee Sampson Headed Back To Death Row For 2001 Killing Spree

BOSTON, MA — After days of deliberation, the jury in convicted murderer Gary Lee Sampson's retrial has unanimously reaffirmed the confessed killer's previous sentence: death.

"Gary Lee Sampson will pay with his life for all of the heinous crimes he committed," U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz told reporters following Monday's decision. "The jury has spoken."

Sampson, of Abington, took two lives while hitchhiking through Massachusetts in 2001. He killed Philip McCloskey, 69, of Taunton, and Kingston native Jonathan Rizzo, 19, after grabbing a ride in their cars. He tied up both and stabbed them to death in separate instances within a three-day span.

He later turned himself in to police and admitted to both murders. Sampson separately pleaded guilty to the murder of a former New Hampshire city councilor and an attack on a Vermont man within the same week.

Sampson was sentenced to death by lethal injection after those convictions in 2003, but that verdict was scrapped by a federal judge in 2011 due to juror misconduct.

A 12-member federal jury sentenced him to death a second time Monday for the murder of Rizzo and gave him a life sentence for the death of McCloskey.

Reporters at the trial said the victims' families were emotional, while Sampson himself seemed unmoved by the verdict.

Police in Marshfield, where McCloskey's body was found in the woods, lauded the jury's decision.

Sampson's actions were "unimaginable, horrific and evil," Marshfield Police Chief Phillip Tavares said in a statement minutes after Monday's sentencing.

"His conscious actions left a wake of destruction that will never be repaired. Gary Sampson represents a level of evil that I hope to never encounter again for the rest of my life," Tavares wrote. "I can only hope that today's verdict brings some type of comfort or small degree of closure for the families of his innocent victims. While nothing will bring their loved ones back, I hope that knowing this monster will never be able to harm another innocent person brings them a measure of peace."

In a press conference following the trial, Rizzo's mother, Mary, told reporters she wants her son and the other victims to be "defined by their life, not by their death and evil."

Sampson's trial resumed this November, and jurors have been deliberating since Thursday as the defense pushed for life in prison rather than capital punishment.

Although Massachusetts law does not allow for the death penalty, Sampson was tried under federal law. If executed, he would be the first person killed for a crime in Massachusetts since 1947.

He is the first to receive the federal death sentence since Boston Marathon bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev in 2015. Tsarnaev is currently appealing.

His defense has made its case around various mitigating factors, such as multiple head traumas and substance abuse. They argued that by admitting his guilt and confessing to the crimes, Sampson demonstrated remorse. The prosecution has said that documented violent behavior in prison shows he remains a danger, even if kept behind bars.

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Image via U.S Attorney General's Office, Massachusetts