A former University of Maryland, Baltimore County, student was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without parole for murdering a woman he met on MySpace.com and to an additional life sentence for raping her first.
“It was a bad date,” Circuit Judge Mickey Norman told John Gaumer, 23. “Two people didn?t click. You could have just taken her home, watched her walk to her door and never made contact with her again. Instead, you brutalized her.”
According to testimony at the trial, Gaumer snapped and flew into a rage when 27-year-old Josie Brown, who had agreed to accompanyhim back to his dorm room, changed her mind. After raping her and beating her to death, he cut off her nose, jawbone and fingertips and removed her teeth in an attempt to conceal her identity and avoid prosecution.
Gaumer faced a possible death sentence. But jurors said they spared his life out of mercy and because of his age, lack of a prior criminal record and the impact execution would have on Gaumer?s family.
In final arguments Wednesday, defense attorney Donald Zaremba quoted from Shakespeare?s “Merchant of Venice” on the quality of mercy, cited the Bible and asked for leniency. He told jurors to search their consciences before deciding the sentence.
“For his execution to occur, each of you must pick up a stone and throw it,” Zaremba said.
“Punish him,” he said. “Make sure he spends the rest of his life in a prison cell contemplating what he did in this crime. But please, please spare his life.”
Prosecutor Ann Brobst categorized Gaumer?s family?s pleas for his life as a distraction from his crime.
“That is just shifting the blame,” Brobst said. “The pain they?re going through is as a result of his actions.”
She asked the jury to consider the victim?s family instead. “These people are going to live with this the rest of their lives,” she said. “All they want is justice for Josie. They?re not looking for vengeance.”
Although she had sought the death penalty, Brobst called the jury?s decision a “significant sentence” that brings Brown?s family closure.
Wednesday night, Gaumer?s mother said she planned to visit her son behind bars.
“Where there?s life, there?s hope,” Janet Gaumer said. “He?s a child of my heart.”
