CENTENNIAL, Colo.—Sir Mario Owens has been sentenced to death for the slaying of a potential witness and his fiancee.
Jurors last month found the 23-year-old Owens guilty of first-degree murder in the June 2005 deaths of Javad Marshall-Fields and his fiancee, Vivian Wolfe.
The two were shot to death June 20, 2005, in their car at an Aurora intersection. Marshall-Fields had been scheduled to testify in another murder trial.
Jurors, who had been deliberating since Friday reached the death penalty verdict Monday in the slaying of both Marshall-Fields and Wolfe. They deliberated a total of seven hours.
“I have recharged confidence in our democracy and in our justice system,” Marshall-Fields’ mother, Rhonda Fields told the media outside the courtroom.
Added Christine Wolfe: “We only know that we lost our child, and really justice is being served.”
Owens was previously convicted of first-degree murder in the July 4, 2004, slaying of Gregory Vann at Lowry Park in Aurora, which Marshall-Fields witnessed and was scheduled to testify at the trial of another defendant.
“It’s a very somber day, this is not some thing that we celebrate or take any great joy in,” said prosecutor John Hower after the verdict. “We believe that it is a very just verdict.”
A hearing where a judge will discuss details of the sentence is scheduled for Sept. 2.
When asked outside the courtroom by KUSA-TV if she had anything to say, Owens’ mother, Monica Owens, said: “Just to let the jurors and the mothers that wish death upon my son that to me they’re no different than what they accuse him of, this murder.”
Owens will become the second person on death row, joining Nathan Dunlap, now 33, who was convicted in the 1996 slaying of four people at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora. A fifth shooting victim survived.
Edward Montour Jr., 39, who was convicted of murder in the death of a guard at the Limon prison in October 2002, had been on death row until his sentenced was overturned by the Colorado Supreme Court in April 2007.
The last execution in Colorado was in 1997, when 53-year-old Gary Lee Davis was put to death for his conviction in a 1986 slaying.
