Videotaped sex killing draws death sentence

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- A suburban Kansas City man convicted of murdering a woman whose rape and suffocation were videotaped was sentenced to death Friday.

Judge Marco Roldan followed a jury's recommendation in sentencing Richard Davis, 44, of Independence, to death for the 2006 killing of Marsha Spicer, who was suffocated during sex at Davis' apartment. The jury recommended the sentence after convicting him of first-degree murder in July.

Roldan also sentenced Davis to 22 life sentences on multiple counts of rape, sodomy and assault. He sentenced him to two 15-year prison terms on two counts of felonious restraint.

Some of the charges were related to a separate videotaped attack on Michelle Huff-Ricci, 36, of Kansas City, a month before Spicer's slaying. Huff-Ricci's remains were found in Clay County, where Davis and his girlfriend, Dena Riley, are charged with capital-murder in her suffocation death. A trial date has not yet been set in that case.

Riley is scheduled to go to trial in April in Spicer's slaying.

Both Spicer's death and the attack on Huff-Ricci were recorded on videotapes that became key evidence in Davis' trial.

Roldan said he wrestled with whether to hand down the death sentence, but ultimately used the law and the jury's decision as guides.

"I observed the jurors for 2 1/2 weeks," he said during the sentencing hearing. "I saw nothing but agony and difficulty and them in a situation they did not want to be put in. I feel that I'm in the same position as the jurors."

Before sentencing, defense attorney Tom Jacquinot asked the judge to consider a life sentence without parole for the murder. Afterward, Jacquinot said he was not surprised that the judge went along with the jury. He said the defense will be filing an appeal.

Assistant Jackson County prosecutor Ted Hunt said the death penalty was the most appropriate sentence considering the nature of the Spicer killing and Davis' criminal history, which includes a 1987 rape for which he spent nearly 18 years in prison.

"He was killing for pleasure," Hunt said after the sentencing. "This case revealed itself -- to us, the jury and ultimately the judge -- to be a death-penalty case."

Family members of Spicer and Huff-Ricci did not speak during the hearing and declined comment afterward.

Riley and Davis also have been indicted in Kansas on a federal charge of kidnapping a 5-year-old girl. The couple allegedly assaulted the child while on the run after the deaths of Huff-Ricci and Spicer.

The federal case is on hold while the courts in Jackson and Clay counties resolve their cases, said Jim Cross, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Kansas.