~ Cape man facing either life in prison or death penalty

WAYNESVILLE, Mo. -- A 26-year-old man was convicted Thursday in the 2002 abduction and slaying of a Cape Girardeau County man and could be sentenced to death.

Following a four-day jury trial, Justin Brown of Cape Girardeau was found guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping in the July 7, 2002, slaying of Ralph Lee Lape Jr., 54.

The eight-man, four-woman jury deliberated for four hours before reaching its decision Thursday night.

Another man, Mark Gill, 35, was convicted in 2004 on the same charges. He was sentenced to death.

Brown now faces either life in prison or death for the crime, one of which the jury will recommend after hearing evidence today from additional witnesses during the sentencing phase.

Prosecutors accused Brown and Gill of plotting to kill Lape when they learned he had a large sum of money.

The two hid in Lape's garage in rural Cape Girardeau County near Jackson until the victim returned home from a Fourth of July celebration at a cabin he owned.

The men beat, bound and took Lape to a cornfield in New Madrid County near Portageville, Mo., prosecutors said. There, Gill and Brown dug a shallow grave and shot Lape. The victim's clothing and jewelry were removed, and the body was buried.

With Lape's credit cards and ATM card, the personal identification number of which Gill obtained, the men went to a St. Louis-area strip club and stayed at the Adam's Mark Hotel.

"Ralph Lee Lape Jr. was a dead man from the moment Justin Brown and Mark Gill found out he had $118,000 in the bank," Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said in closing arguments Thursday.

But Tom Marshall, Brown's public defender, asserted that his client was used by Gill, whom he portrayed as a threatening individual and called a "knuckle buster." When Gill was arrested on Aug. 1 in New Mexico after coming back from a Las Vegas wedding to his girlfriend, police found $400 on his person and a .357-caliber handgun in his trunk.

Marshall pointed out that when Brown was arrested, he had no money or weapons on him.

"Justin didn't get anything," Marshall said.

He also cited testimony from Robert McLean, a quadriplegic Gill was hired to care for in 2000 by Cape Girardeau lawyer Pat Davis. When McLean filed suit against Davis for mismanaging his trust, Gill threatened McLean with a gun.

"Justin wasn't on a team with Mark Gill. If anything, he was scared for his life," Marshall said, adding that the killer in Lape's death was Gill, not Brown.

"The big difference between Robert McLean and Ralph Lape is that when Justin Brown gets involved, someone dies," Swingle said in rebuttal.

He reminded the jury that they only need to determine Brown's knowing involvement in the slaying to find him guilty of first-degree murder.

"It doesn't matter which of these individuals pulled the trigger. They both planned it," Swingle said, referring to a videotaped statement made by Brown Aug. 2 in which he admitted to knowing about the plan to kill Lape.

Marshall attacked Swingle's stance on the videotape, stating Brown was under the impression he was working with the authorities when the tape was made.

"Mr. Swingle swindled Justin," Marshall said, adding no one told Brown a deal he made with the prosecutor was off until he was read his charges after the Aug. 2 recording.

Swingle promised Brown he would only be charged with misdemeanor tampering with evidence as long as the defendant told the truth and had no role in the death.

When the deal was written, Brown had originally told investigators that the body was dead and he only helped bury it. In a videotaped statement a day later, on Aug. 2, Brown revealed that he spoken with Gill July 6 about the plan and had seen Lape alive the next day.

Several statements Brown made in the recording also differed from what he told officers in a previous recording the day before, including his role in helping abduct Lape.

Because Brown lied and withheld his involvement in the slaying, which included buying the duct tape used to bind Lape, the deal was off, Swingle said.

During the sentencing phase of the trial Thursday night, some of the jurors wiped tears from their eyes while listening to Lape's family members describe the impact of his death.

"I have trouble sleeping because every time I close my eyes I think about how scared he was and about how bad they hurt him," sobbed Lape's daughter, Megan Lape. "They hurt him so bad that it breaks my heart to know he had to go through that."

Diane Lape, Ralph Lape's sister, testified that she thinks about her brother every day and often becomes emotional during car trips through the country.

"There are so many cornfields," she said in a wavering voice. A few weeks after the body was found, Diane Lape and her husband buried a cross in the cornfield grave where her brother was left.

Defense attorneys were scheduled present their case for sentencing today, and public defender Jan Zembles told jurors that witnesses would testify to Brown's childhood, which she called normal, and his experience in county jails.

Some of the witnesses expected to be called include jail guards, she said.

When court concluded for the night Thursday, family members of both the victim and the defendant declined comment.

After court, Swingle said that he was happy with the verdict.

"I am very pleased that he will never walk the streets again," he said of Brown.

The trial, which began Monday, was overseen in Pulaski County by Circuit Judge Tracy L. Storie on a change of venue.

kmorrison@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127