Arizona man gets nine life terms for Buddhist temple murders

An Arizona man convicted of the execution-style killings of six Buddhist monks and three others at a temple near Phoenix more than two decades ago was sentenced yesterday to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Johnathan Doody (39) was sentenced to nine consecutive life terms after being convicted by a jury in January of nine counts of first-degree murder and armed robbery for a crime that drew international attention and remains the most deadly mass murder in the southwest US state’s history.

Thailand-born Doody also received another 33 years for eight armed robbery counts, and one count each of burglary and conspiracy after being convicted in Maricopa County superior court .

“From my perspective, there can be no other sentence,” Judge Joseph Kreamer said in handing down his decision. Judge Kreamer also read aloud the names of the nine people the then-high school student was convicted of murdering in Waddell, Arizona.

Doody was not eligible for the death penalty because he was 17 at the time of the killings at the Wat Promkunaram temple, where the bodies of six monks, a novice, a nun and a temple boy were discovered on August 10th, 1991, in a circle, face down, each with a single gunshot to the head.

Recanted
Four men from Tucson were originally arrested for the killings after an interrogation by sheriff's deputies resulted in their confessions. But the charges were dropped when the men recanted.

Authorities then focused on Doody and his high school classmate, Alessandro “Alex” Garcia (16) after a .22-calibre semiautomatic rifle was found during an unrelated search of a friend’s vehicle. It was identified as the murder weapon.

Doody’s father said the sentence came as no surprise. “This is what we expected,” Brian Doody said, his wife and daughter by his side. “It wasn’t a shock to us. We haven’t recovered from the verdict. We still believe in his innocence.”

Doody was originally convicted in 1994, but a US appeals court threw out the decision in May 2011, saying it was based on a coerced confession, and a retrial was ordered. A second jury was deadlocked on his fate in October 2013, but he was convicted in a second retrial.

Garcia, who was the key witness for the prosecution at Doody’s latest trial, pleaded guilty to the murders and an unrelated homicide and was sentenced to 271 years in prison in 1993.

– (Reuters)