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« Suspicious package not a bomb, just trash | Today | Providence toddler survives 30-foot fall out window » March 21, 2006High court upholds verdict, sentence in Little Compton murder casePROVIDENCE -- The state Supreme Court this morning upheld the 2001 conviction of Jeremy M. Motyka, a Fall River man sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for raping and murdering a Little Compton woman. In asking for a new trial, Motyka argued that the Superior Court Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson improperly denied the defense access to DNA evidence. He also asked the state's highest court to overturn Thompson's decision to issue the sentence of life without parole -- the harshest sentence possible in Rhode Island. "After reviewing the record, it is our opinion that the evidence in this case overwhelmingly supports the jury’s conclusion that defendant committed the murder intentionally while engaged in the commission of first-degree sexual assault and that he committed the murder in a manner involving both torture and an aggravated battery," Supreme Court Justice William P. Robinson III wrote in the court opinion. A Superior Court jury declared Motyka guilty of the murder and rape of 66-year-old Angela Spence-Shaw, who was found beaten to death in the upstairs bathtub of her Little Compton home on May 30, 1999. Judge Thompson sentenced Motyka, then 23, of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Posted by Steve Peoples |
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