BRIDGEPORT — A jury has decided that triple murderer Richard Roszkowski deserves the death sentence, saying nearly two years after the state abolished capital punishment that he should be sent to death row.
Jurors announced their decision Monday in Superior Court in Bridgeport after six days of deliberation, said Margaret Kelley, senior assistant state’s attorney. They had been listening to testimony since Jan. 7.
“The feeling was that the jury did a conscientious job and reached a just verdict,” said C. Robert Satti Jr., supervisory assistant state’s attorney — whose father was a prosecutor in the case of Michael Ross, the last person put to death by the state.
A bill repealing the death penalty was signed into law in April of 2012. The law applies to future capital crimes; it allows executions of those who committed similar crimes before it took effect. A challenge is pending before the state Supreme Court.
The jury said it wanted the death sentence for the killing of 9-year-old Kylie Flannery. She, her mother, Holly Flannery, 39, and Thomas Gaudet, a 38-year-old landscaper, were fatally shot on Sept. 7, 2006.
Roszkowski shot Flannery and Gaudet once each in the head on Seaview Avenue and then went after Kylie, chasing her down the street, shooting her at close range.
“She screamed, ‘Don’t kill me, don’t kill me,’ “ as she ran in flip flops, flailing her arms, Kelley said.
The defense tried to show that Gaudet and Holly Flannery were having an affair, but there was no evidence of that, the prosecutor said.
This was the second time a jury has said Roszkowski, a 49-year-old from Trumbull, should be sentenced to death. He was convicted and sentenced to die in 2009 for the triple murder, but a judge dismissed his death sentence because of an error in jury instructions.
A new penalty phase was ordered. It began with jury selection on Sept. 16, Kelley said.
Roszkowski’s sentencing before Judge John F. Blawie is scheduled for May 22.