Ex-UMBC student John Gaumer publicly apologized for the first time Tuesday for killing a woman he met over the Internet — and pleaded with a jury to spare his life.
“I am asking a jury of my peers to find mercy in your heart,” Gaumer, 23, said between tears in Baltimore County Circuit Court.
The same jury found Gaumer guilty last week of raping and murdering Josie Brown, 27, on Dec. 29, 2005.
A medical examiner testified that Brown suffered more than 70 bruises ? and had most of her face removed, including her jaw, nose and teeth. Her fingertips were also cut off. Gaumer told detectives he carried her body partsfrom the scene in her purse in an attempt to conceal her identity.
“I didn?t plan to hurt Josie or harm her in any way,” Gaumer told the jury.
“I?m so sorry,” he said, turning toward Brown?s family in the courtroom. “I can only hope you find it in your heart to forgive me. I am not sorry for going to prison. I am sorry because that?s the type of person I am.”
After meeting Brown on the Internet, Gaumer told police, he spent more than $100 on her at several Baltimore nightspots before attempting to take her back to his dorm room. But after agreeing to go, Brown changed her mind, Gaumer told police.
Ultimately, the 6-foot-6-inch, 225-pound former football player threw her out of his vehicle and beat her to death, he admitted.
Prosecutors introduced into evidence Tuesday dozens of pictures of ex-girlfriends Gaumer kept in his dorm room. Assistant State?s Attorney Ann Brobst pointed out that on Gaumer?s MySpace.com page ? in which he called himself “bigthickdude” ? the student bragged of being shaved from the neck down.
He also admitted to a doctor to having unprotected sex with 10 females in the span of six months, Brobst said.
Gaumer told jurors he had to overcome a learning disability and speech impediment to make it to college.
“I?m not asking to be pitied, just understood,” Gaumer said.
He compared himself to the character Lennie from John Steinbeck?s novel, “Of Mice and Men.”
“He was big like an ox, but he had the mental ability of a child,” Gaumer said.
The jury will begin deliberating whether to sentence Gaumer to death today.
