Jury begins deliberating videotaped killing case

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) -- The strongest evidence against a man accused of the sexual torture and slaying of a suburban Kansas City woman is the videotape he made of the attack, prosecutors said Thursday shortly before jurors began deliberating the capital-murder case.

In her closing arguments, Assistant Jackson County prosecutor Tammy Dickinson said Richard D. Davis videotaped the attack to fulfill his own violent sexual fantasies.

Davis, 44, of Independence, faces 26 counts in Jackson County Circuit Court in the slaying of Marsha Spicer, 41, also of Independence, and in the assault of Michelle Huff-Ricci, 36. Davis had faced 40 charges, but prosecutors decided to consolidate some of the counts before Thursday's proceedings. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Dickinson told jurors that Davis held Spicer down at his apartment in May 2006, while his girlfriend, Dena Riley, sat on Spicer's face and smothered her.

Riley's trial in the slaying is scheduled for next year.

Davis and Riley also are charged in neighboring Clay County with capital murder in the April 2006 suffocation of Huff-Ricci. Police also found a videotape of Huff-Ricci being beaten and raped in Davis' apartment, but authorities believe she was killed elsewhere.

Defense attorney Tom Jacquinot argued that Spicer's killing was not planned and that Davis simply became caught up in his own "horrible fantasies" about killing.

Jacquinot said the evidence doesn't show Davis deliberately killed Spicer and doesn't support a first-degree murder charge -- necessary for the death penalty. He urged jurors to find his client guilty of second-degree murder.

During her closing arguments, Dickinson showed jurors still images from the videotapes that were found in Davis' apartment and workplace.

"One minute and nine seconds," she said. "It seemed like a lifetime, when in fact that's how long it took to take Marsha Spicer's life.

"That's how long Marsha Spicer struggled. That's how long she gasped for air. That's how long she fought under the weight of Dena Riley and the pressure of Richard Davis."

Dickinson said Davis might not have killed Spicer, but he encouraged her death and wanted to watch it happen.

"He was raping and holding Marsha Spicer down while Dena Riley was smothering her," Dickinson said.

She added that Davis and Riley thought they had made mistakes in the earlier sexual torture of Huff-Ricci and wanted to perfect their methods with the killing of Spicer.

Although Huff-Ricci was killed before Spicer, her death didn't come to light until after Davis and Riley were charged in Spicer's slaying. Authorities have said Davis and Riley led them to Huff-Ricci's body after a five-day manhunt in May 2006.

Riley and Davis also have been indicted in Kansas on a federal charge of kidnapping a 5-year-old southeast Kansas girl related to Davis after fleeing the Kansas City area.