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Craigslist murder jury: The jury in the case of a man who allegedly used Craigslist to lure three men and murder them has begun.
A jury is now deliberating the case of a man who allegedly used Craigslist job offers to lure three men to his Ohio farm before killing them, it was reported Tuesday.
Richard Beasley, 53, is accused of killing Ralph Geiger, 56, Timothy Kern, 47, and David Pauley, 51, after allegedly luring them to a farm near Cadwell with a Craigslist ad for a farmland job. The three deaths took place in 2011.
Jurors were given the case on Monday afternoon and deliberated over Beasley’s fate in the evening at the behest of the judge, reported The Associated Press.
Members of the jury will be sequestered each night in a hotel until they come to a verdict.
If Beasley—described as a “master manipulator” by prosecutors—is convicted of aggravated murder, he might ultimately face the death penalty, according to Reuters. A co-defendant in the case, 18-year-old Brogan Rafferty, was sentenced to life without parole last year.
“Richard Beasley was not going to stop … the killing was not going to stop,” said Jonathan Baumoel, assistant Summit County prosecutor, according to the Canton Rep. “He had a thirst for blood. He had a thirst for death.”
Baumoel said that money and staying out of prison were Beasley’s motivation for killing the men. “He took those lives in a cold, calculated, vicious manner,” he said.
Defense attorney James Burdon denied the prosecution’s claims that identity theft and robbery were his motivation. He said that Beasley was using the ID of a man before the man was found dead.
“He didn’t have to lure him to southern Ohio to kill him,” Burdon said, reported AP.
Burdon said the men had little to steal, saying that one of the men had to borrow $20 to travel to the farm job interview.
Baumoel added that these men “were desperate for a better life. They wanted hope. They wanted a second chance and because of that they were easy prey for a master manipulator,” reported Fox-8 television.
Beasley has said that he didn’t know about the killings.
“I had no idea that somebody, anybody, had been killed down on that farm. I had no way to know,” Beasley testified, according to AP.
Baumoel urged the jurors to use common sense when making their deliberations.
“Use your common sense in evaluating the testimony and in evaluating Richard Beasley’s version of what happened,” he said, according to Fox-8.
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