A Fairfax County, Va., jury has decided that a man convicted in the beating death and sexual assault of a woman in the apartment complex where he worked should get the death penalty.
Mark E. Lawlor, a leasing agent in the building where 29-year-old Genevieve Orange lived, used a key to enter her apartment one night in September 2008, prosecutors said. An autopsy showed he beat her with a hammer and then sexually assaulted her. DNA evidence at the scene implicated Lawlor.
Lawlor's attorneys conceded that he was guilty of murder. But they said the crime wasn't capital murder because Lawlor was drunk and high on crack after a daylong binge.
Lawlor's sentence was announced Wednesday.
Copyright AP - Associated Press
