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Update: Jury recommends death for Jeffries

PANAMA CITY — Jurors have decided an Alabama man who brutally beat, tortured and murdered a 90-year-old veteran should die for his crime.

Jurors found Kevin Gene Jeffries, 29, not only coldly calculated the April 2013 murder of Wallace Reid Scott, but also cruelly executed the crime by torturing the Navy war vet in his Lynn Haven home until his death. Defense attorneys attempted to argue that Jeffries was duped into the situation which led to Scott’s death. After less than an hour of deliberation, the jury suggested Jeffries be put to death for his crime.

Florida law allows the death penalty to be recommended against a criminal by a simple majority of jurors. Jeffries was condemned to death by a margin of 10-2 during his sentencing Friday.

Judge Brantley Clark will return Aug. 29 to weigh in on the sentencing and has to heavily consider the jury’s recommendation.

Defense attorneys tried to demonstrate Jeffries was low man on the list of culpable parties. Taking a gamble, Walter Smith called Sherri Mercer to the stand as the final witness in the trial. Mercer, aunt of Jeffries, has been accused of motivating the trip he and her son, David Challender, took to Scott’s home April 4.

Throughout the trial, Smith tried to show Jeffries and his girlfriend, Ashley Griffin, were misled by Challender into thinking the plan was to burglarize Scott’s home and steal bank cards and PIN numbers. In his opinion, 28-year-old Challender knew the goal was to take Scott out before he could remove Mercer as a beneficiary from his will, Smith said.

Griffin and Jeffries played the most detached role, thinking the group would only stay at Scott’s home for a week, rob his house, steal his money and do some online shopping with his bank cards, Smith said. Challender and Mercer knew the real score was the home itself and entirety of the bank accounts, Smith said.

Griffin has pleaded to second-degree murder for being an accomplice, Jeffries was found guilty of premeditated first-degree murder and Challender’s trial is set for September.

“The person most guilty for this crime likely will never be charged in this case,” Smith said.

Mercer is currently serving 20 months in Bay County Jail for grand theft of Scott’s credit cards. The defense’s play seemed to wager Mercer would admit to harboring ill will against Scott for removing her from his will and, in essence, vindicate her nephew as the calculating Scott’s murderer.

Jeffries would still die in prison by that criteria but, perhaps, not by execution.

Scott “had been good to my whole entire family,” Mercer said. “He was good to my sister, me, my kids. … I lost it, especially when I found out [Jeffries] and my son took that man’s life.”

Mercer denied testimony other family members had given detailing her complaints of sexual abuses committed by Scott. A younger sibling of Jeffries was ejected from the courtroom for jeering at Mercer.

However, prosecutors demonstrated that Griffin and Jeffries stayed with Mercer while they worked in Panama City Beach after the BP oil spill. Prosecutor Larry Basford said because of the time Jeffries spent with Challender and Mercer he likely had the same goal in mind, but evidence of a greater conspiracy does not exist.

“Mercer has been put in jail for the most that can be proved,” Basford said. “And Challender will face a jury just like this one in September.”

Jeffries returns for sentencing in August on the additional charges of armed robbery and burglary while armed for stealing four firearms while in Scott’s home. Also, the death penalty will be accepted by Clark or rejected for life in prison.

 

An earlier version of this story is posted below: 

 

 PANAMA CITY — A Bay County jury recommended the death penalty for Kevin Jeffries.

 

Jeffries was found guilty of murdering a Lynn Haven man in a brutal attack and robbery. A jury voted 10-2 Friday to recommend death.

The judge will make the ultimate decison as to Jeffries' fate.

Check back soon for more details


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