Death penalty for double murders upheld

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — The Nebraska Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of a man convicted in 2009 of a double homicide in Grand Island.

Marco E. Torres Jr. of Pasadena, Texas, was convicted by a Hall County jury on Aug. 28, 2009, of killing Timothy Donohue, 48, and Edward Hall, 60, on March 3, 2007, at Hall's home.

The 36-year-old was sentenced to death in January 2010 by a three-judge panel for each of the first-degree murder convictions. He was also sentenced to 50 years each for robbery and three counts of using a gun to commit a felony, as well as to 20 months to five years in prison for unauthorized use of a debit card.

Torres' case was argued before the Nebraska Supreme Court in Lincoln last March. The appeal of the conviction and death sentence was automatic.

His court-appointed attorney, Kirk Naylor, argued that trial Judge James Livingston allowed 14 errors. Those included admitting evidence relating to Torres' conviction for a kidnapping that occurred in mid-February 2007 at Hall's home and the use of a trial transcript by the members of the three-judge panel, two of whom didn't hear direct testimony.

During arguments in March 2011, Kirk Brown, an attorney with the Nebraska Attorney General's Office, said Torres waived his right to have a jury for the sentencing phase.

"He can't waive a jury, then claim he was denied due process," Brown said. "If he wanted what he claimed he wanted, he could have had it."

Naylor, who represented Torres along with Peter Blakeslee, also argued that evidence of aggravating circumstances was improperly used to lead the panel to the death sentence.

The high court affirmed the conviction and the sentence.

The Supreme Court's 62-page decision included the following description of the case:

On March 5, 2007, at approximately 8:50 p.m., police officers responded to a request for a welfare check on Hall. The check was requested by Gina Padilla, who was living at the home. Officers discovered Hall's body, bound with an orange extension cord, gagged with the belt from a bathrobe and seated in an armchair on the first floor of the home. Donohue, another resident of the home, was discovered upstairs.

Autopsies were performed on both Hall and Donohue by a forensic pathologist. Hall's autopsy revealed he had suffered three contact gunshot wounds to the head. His lips were purple, suggesting a lack of oxygen prior to his death. His cause of death was listed as asphyxiation by gagging, suffocation, physical restraint and multiple deeply penetrating gunshot wounds. The pathologist testified that, if Hall hadn't been shot, he would have asphyxiated.

Donohue's cause of death was three gunshot wounds to the head and chest. The pathologist testified the shots were fired at close range.

The pathologist was unable to give an exact time of death for either Hall or Donohue but testified that they died around the same time on March 3, 2007, or in the early hours of March 4, 2007.

DNA testing was performed on the bathrobe belt and the extension cord found on Hall, as well as on cigarette butts found in Donohue's room. Torres' DNA was found in a mixture with Hall's DNA on the belt and couldn't be excluded as a source of DNA on the extension cord. His DNA was a contributor to DNA mixtures found on the cigarette butts.

Bank records show that, between 2:41 and 2:54 a.m. March 3, 2007, Hall's ATM card was used several times at a Grand Island store. Security footage reveals Torres entered the store alone and was using Hall's card. He then apparently went to a motel.

Telephone records from the motel show repeated calls were made to a cellphone belonging to Padilla's boyfriend, Jose Cross, from rooms in which Torres was known to have stayed.

Cross testified that Torres told him that he had to put Hall and Donohue to sleep, which he understood meant Torres had killed them.

Eventually, Torres headed back to Texas. Houston-area law enforcement arrested him on March 26, 2007.

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