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2/14/2006 4:46:00 PM

Defense attorney asks jury to consider Rogers childhood

Associated Press

OREGON CITY (AP) Serial killer Dayton Leroy Rogers has twice been sent to death row only to have the Oregon Supreme Court overturn the sentences.

A defense attorney this week told jurors at Rogers latest sentencing trial to consider her clients childhood before handing down the ultimate punishment.

You will hear no excuses, no justifications, just information about this persons first 18 years of life, the attorney, Lisa Ludwig, told jurors in her opening statement.

Ludwig said Rogers was beaten by a father who also killed family pets by gassing them or running them over with a car. Rogers mother, meanwhile, walked around the house barely dressed and regularly complained to Rogers that sex with his father was painful.

Children live what they learn, she said.

Rogers was convicted in 1989 of mutilating and stabbing to death six women, and that conviction is not in question. Jurors will decide whether Rogers is sentenced to death, life in prison with no possibility of parole or life in prison with the possibility of parole.

The Oregon Supreme Court overturned the last death sentence because jurors were not given the option of sentencing Rogers to life in prison without a chance for parole.

The trial is expected to last several weeks, with a new sentence to be issued in March. If jurors decide on the death penalty, Rogers case will be appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court, the first step in a process that could take at least a decade to complete.

Rogers first known attack was at age 18 in 1972, when he stabbed a 15-year-old Eugene girl after taking her to a wooded area to have sex. In 1973, after striking two Lane County girls, he was sent to the state mental hospital. After his release in 1974, Rogers crimes continued for more than a decade. Hes thought to have tortured and killed eight women.

Deputy District Attorney Scott Healy, in his opening statement Monday, reminded jurors that Rogers hog-tied, carved up and dumped the bodies of seven victims in the woods near Molalla.

Rogers disemboweled one victim and sawed off the feet of other women in an attempt to satisfy a foot fetish, Healy said.

Healy said death is the only appropriate sentence for such a killer.