POSTED: 6:44 pm PDT October 8, 2008
http://www.ktvu.com/news/17667165/detail.html

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The defense attorney for a man who was convicted of murdering five young women in the East Bay in 1985 asked jurors Wednesday to spare his life, calling him "an ordinary man who did some very bad things."

In his closing argument in the penalty phase of Anthony McKnight's trial in Alameda County Superior Court, defense lawyer Michael Berger said, "There are truly evil people who are that way from their youth, but that's not what we have here."

Berger said, "Why a man who led a normal life for 30 years and had a job, a wife and kids and took care of his mother would suddenly snap and do this, I don't have a clue."

Berger said the five murders plus other crimes that were discussed at McKnight's trial were "10 incidents that occurred 22 years ago in an otherwise unremarkable life."

Berger told jurors that imposing the death penalty on McKnight, a 55-year-old former Navy-enlisted man, "will serve no purpose whatsoever" because it won't bring back any of his victims and "you've already assured that he will die in prison" by convicting him Sept. 17 of five counts of first-degree murder as well as five special circumstances murder clauses.

Three of the special circumstances are for committing murder during the course of a rape, one is for committing murder during sodomy and one is for committing multiple murders.

In addition, McKnight, who lived in Oakland and was assigned to the Alameda Naval Air Station, is already serving a 63-year term in state prison because he was convicted in August 1987 of 11 felony counts, including attempted murder, mayhem, kidnapping and forced oral copulation, for attacks on six prostitutes between 1984 and his arrest in January 1986.

After he began serving his prison sentence, authorities used new DNA analysis techniques to connect McKnight to the murders in his current case, which occurred in secluded locations in Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley and Richmond between September and December of 1985.

When jurors return to the courtroom of Judge Jeffrey Horner on Tuesday morning, after being off Thursday due to the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur and on Monday for Columbus Day, they will begin deliberating on whether to recommend the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole for McKnight.

Prosecutor Jim Meehan, who gave his closing argument first Wednesday, told jurors that McKnight "deserves nothing less than the death penalty" because he believes the aggravating evidence in the case far outweighs the mitigating evidence.

Meehan said the aggravating evidence includes the viciousness of the five murders themselves plus evidence that McKnight brutally attacked six other women in incidents he said they wouldn't have survived without medical intervention.

"If it were left up to Anthony McKnight, we could be talking about 11 murders instead of only five," Meehan said.

The prosecutor called McKnight an "animal" and told jurors to "judge a man based on what he does when he thinks no one is watching."

Meehan told jurors to consider the pain and suffering the five victims in the case suffered, saying, "They died traumatized, alone and in fear."

Meehan said the viciousness with which McKnight sexually assaulted and killed his victims "demonstrates how unworthy he is for your compassion."

Meehan said that although some people think that forcing a convicted murderer to spend the rest of his life in prison is a worse punishment than imposing the death penalty, he thinks that the death penalty is the more serious punishment.

"Life is life -- you're still living and there's still hope," Meehan said.

The prosecutor said "life in prison is certainly the more lenient sentence, and Anthony McKnight would still have a life."

Meehan then showed photographs of the five women McKnight was convicted of murdering and said, "These five women don't have a life."