Self-described serial killer Sean Hanify was sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the murders of two Denver men.
“Mr. Hanify is a very sad human being, a very sick human being,” Denver prosecutor Adrienne Greene told the two Denver judges who imposed the sentences. “He became the equivalent of a human monster.”
On the morning of July 24, 2000, police found the body of 44-year-old Mark Davis on the banks of Cherry Creek covered with rocks.
A note left by the killer read, “Irish Sicilian Mafioso Connection” and another read, “Killers in time.” Davis had a knife in his neck and skull fractures.
Hanify, 35, also was convicted of the August 2001 murder of Edward Brown, 59, his roommate. Brown had been eviscerated.
Clarence Brown, Edward’s brother, told Denver District Judges Catherine Lemon and Herbert Stern that his brother, an alcoholic, had turned his life around about seven years before his murder. He spent his time counseling and trying to help people.
“One of the people he tried to help was Mr. Hanify,” Clarence Brown said. “He said Hanify reciprocated by stealing from him. I consider Mr. Hanify beyond rehabilitation.”
Hanify said nothing, but his lawyer, Jason Young, said Hanify “has substantial and serious mental illnesses.”
During the past seven years, Hanify’s lawyers have dismissed his claims of being a serial killer, attributing the claims to mental illness.
Hanify, in interviews with news organizations, claimed responsibility for the 1992 stabbing deaths of two men. He told police he had killed as many as seven men in Utah, California and Denver. Prosecutors said Tuesday that Hanify failed to provide enough information to police to link him to other slayings.
