Life sentence given participant in multiple murders

The hopes and dreams of four young men bound with duct tape and shot execution-style last August were extinguished along with their lives, prosecutors at Sikia Smith's trial told jurors.

On Friday, after six hours of deliberations, those District Court jurors told Smith, the first defendant tried in those slayings, that he can forget about any hopes or dreams he might have had for his own future.

But the jury spared Smith's life for his role in the quadruple murder of Matthew Mowen, 19, Jeffrey Biddle, 19, Tracey Gorringe, 20, and Peter Talamantez, 17.

The eight-woman, four-man jury decided that a life prison term with no chance for parole was the appropriate punishment for the 19-year-old defendant.

As the four verdicts were read in District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski's courtroom, Smith grimly rubbed his face. At one point his head dropped to the defense table and he slowly shook it from side to side.

There were no cocky displays that were evident on June 25 when he was pronounced guilty of murder by the same jury that decided his punishment.

At that hearing Smith scowled briefly at the families of the victims, then smiled and shrugged at the jurors.

Last week Smith made an obscene gesture to a television camera at the end of one court session.

But Friday his mood was somber. Jail corrections officers quickly clapped him into handcuffs when the hearing was completed and the jurors were told they were free to go home.

Although the trial was completed -- except for the formal sentencing Aug. 26 -- the families of the victims lingered for several minutes in the courtroom.

They were neither jubilant nor distressed at the sentence and commented only that they were pleased one killer's case was completed.

At the same time, they knew there were two more trials to endure.

A second defendant, Terrell Cochise Young, 19, is scheduled to stand trial Aug. 30 in Pavlikowski's courtroom.

The trial for the third defendant and alleged triggerman, 19-year-old Donte Johnson, will be held early next year.

Johnson is alleged to have been one of the planners of the robbery at a home on Terra Linda Avenue. In a statement to police played during his trial, Smith said victims were killed because the bandits were known to their victims and there was no other way to avoid apprehension.

Smith's role was to ransack the house near Tropicana Avenue and Nellis Boulevard and find $6,000 in cash and a large quantity of drugs believed to be there. In the end only about $200 and a few pills were located, according to Smith's confession to police.

While prosecutors argued that Smith deserved the death penalty for participating in the quadruple murder, defense attorneys portrayed the teenager as a feeble-minded follower who made the bad choice of joining his buddies on a deadly robbery.

In addition to the murder counts, Smith has been convicted of robbery, kidnapping and other charges. The sentences on those charges will be determined by the judge at the August sentencing, although they will have no impact unless the law is changed to let the state Pardons Board commute Smith's life prison sentences.

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