Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2000 | 11:58 a.m.
Jurors deciding whether to have convicted killer Charles Randolph put to death wept while listening to stirring testimony from his victim's family.
Joyce Lokken, mother of Shelly Lokken, a bartender at Doc Holliday's Tavern who was killed execution style during a May 5, 1998, robbery, testified during Tuesday's penalty hearing that her then-8-year-old granddaughter Brett tried to convince her mother not to go to work that night because Shelly had not been feeling well.
Jurors passed around a box of tissues to wipe away tears as Joyce said the little girl has blamed herself for not being more insistent.
"She feels guilt ... (Brett) believes if Shelly had stayed home that night she would still be alive today," Lokken said.
On Monday the jury returned after about an hour of deliberation with guilty verdicts for first-degree murder, kidnapping, robbery, burglary and conspiracy to commit robbery.
Defense attorneys today were to present witnesses, including Randolph's family members, to ask that he be spared from a lethal injection administered by the state and that he instead receive life in prison.
"Not a day goes by I don't think about her," Lokken said of her daughter, crying as she told the jury she had to keep Shelly's cremains in a closet for more than a year because when she looked at them they would remind her of the slaying.
"It's very hard knowing the way she died. I can feel her terror at the point she died. I have to hang on to the belief she didn't suffer."
Metro Police found Lokken's body in the bar's walk-in cooler. She had been handcuffed and made to kneel on the floor before she was shot twice in the head. Shelly was a 31-year-old single mother. Her parents are raising Brett. Scott Lokken, Shelly's younger brother, said her death has torn the family apart.
Tragedies like this "bring some families closer, but this had the opposite effect on ours," he testified. "It moved us apart. I've been pretty much angry through all of this."
Randolph, 33, a cook who had been fired from Doc Holliday's a few days before the shooting, sat motionless but appeared to be attentive as Joyce and Scott testified.
Deputy District Attorneys William Kephart and David Wall also presented probation officials who testified that Randolph, since age 15, has been convicted in four local courts for crimes ranging from violent acts to use of drugs. His court record includes:
"He (Randolph) used it (crack) on a daily basis," Musser said. "(Randolph) said he becomes violent when he needs to re-up (get high again)." Timothy Jenkins, Randolph's federal probation officer, said Randolph used illegal drugs just 10 days into his probation and that four urine tests confirmed cocaine use.
Randolph's attorneys, Willard Ewing and Curtis Brown, contend that life in prison is appropriate. Ewing told the jury that life with or without parole "is no slap on the wrist."
The defense maintained that after Randolph dismantled the bar's video system and stole it, his partner, Tyrone Garner, 42, entered the facility and killed Lokken to silence the only witness. Garner was convicted for his role as the lookout and getaway driver and was sentenced to life without parole.
The video security system with the tape of the robbery still intact was found in the trunk of Garner's car along with the murder weapon. Garner fingered Randolph as the only one who had entered the tavern. The security videotape, presented to the jury during the trial, showed only one bandit in the bar. The prosecution contended it was Randolph and the jury agreed.
archive
