When convicted killer Scott Nordstrom was given a chance to speak at his sentencing hearing Monday, he declined, saying, "No, I'm good."
Three of his victims' relatives seized the opportunity to speak about the loss of their loved ones, and time did not diminish their tears.
Carol Brown lost her brother, Clarence Odell III, 47, when he was shot to death at the Moon Smoke Shop in the summer of 1996.
Anna Bell and her brother, Rick, lost their parents, Arthur, 54, and Judy, 46, two weeks later when they were shot and killed at the Tucson Firefighters Association Union Hall.
Authorities believe the Bells, Odell, Carol Lynn Noel, 50, Thomas Hardman, 26, and Maribeth Munn, 53, were slain by Nordstrom and his friend Robert G. Jones Jr. during separate robberies.
Authorities believe Nordstrom shot Hardman and Noel and that Jones killed the four other victims, although both men were convicted of six counts of first-degree murder.
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Both men were sentenced to death, but the U.S. Supreme Court decided in June 2002 that juries, not judges, should render the sentence in capital cases. Jones' death sentence had already been upheld, but Nordstrom was granted a new sentencing hearing.
Last month, another Pima County jury decided Nordstrom should die.
On Monday, Judge Richard Nichols of Pima County Superior Court formally sentenced Nordstrom to die by lethal injection and imposed four no-parole life sentences for the other slayings, all to run consecutive to one another.
Before doing so, Nichols heard from the Bells, Brown and attorneys on both sides.
Anna Bell described her parents as being two of the best people anyone could ever meet. Her father was a "fabulous" dancer, her mother was smart and one rarely went anywhere without the other, she said.
Although she once swore she would never forgive Nordstrom, Anna Bell said she's lost a lot over the years because of her anger and hatred.
"I forgive you and I'll pray for you every day," Anna Bell said. "Every morning I'll pray for you like I pray for my parents."
Rick Bell, however, said he will never forgive Nordstrom.
"Please don't let that man out to breathe my air ever again," Rick Bell said.
Brown also said she cannot forgive. If her brother were alive, he'd have two grandchildren to enjoy, she said.
"I don't know how you could have done that," Brown told Nordstrom.
Defense attorney David Darby, who had asked for the no- parole life sentences to run concurrently with one another, went into great detail about why he believes his client is innocent.
Darby told Nichols that tactical decisions made by prosecutors prevented him from talking about certain evidence during the resentencing hearing and he wanted to make the record clear for the state's higher courts.
Darby contends one of the state's key witnesses during Nordstrom's original trial is the actual killer — David Nordstrom, his client's brother.
David Nordstrom, who admitted he was the getaway driver in the smoke-shop robbery, avoided a lengthy prison sentence because he implicated his brother and Jones in both robberies and the slayings.
Deputy Pima County Attorney David White, now deceased, had told jurors David Nordstrom had a "rock-solid alibi" for the union hall event because he was wearing an electronic monitoring device on his ankle.
White withheld evidence, however, that David Nordstrom had repeatedly managed to defeat the device, Darby said.
He has witnesses who say David Nordstrom was seen with Jones the night of the union hall murders and that David Nordstrom confessed to his involvement in both slayings, Darby said.
He also has four witnesses who can testify Scott Nordstrom had an alibi the night of the smoke-shop slayings, he said.
"When you sentence this man, you are sentencing an innocent man," Darby said.
After Nichols pronounced the sentence, Darby filed a notice of appeal, a motion for a new trial and five volumes of exhibits that include witness affidavits, police reports, trial transcripts and new investigative reports.
After the hearing, prosecutor Rick Unklesbay said the allegations made against White are "simply not true." Over the last several years, defense attorneys have tried to use the dismissal of one of White's cases to their advantage, Unklesbay said.
In 1993, prosecutors were forced to dismiss murder charges against an Avra Valley woman when they learned White had failed to give her defense attorneys 870 pages of documents during her first trial.
He and an investigator within the office went through dozens of White's cases looking for other cases where evidence was withheld and found none, Unklesbay said.
