Christopher Lamar

Case overview

Christopher George Theodore Lamar was sentenced to death on June 1, 2001 (ADC# 159213).

Background

In May 1996, Christopher Lamar was dating Myla Hogan. Lamar and Hogan met and first became involved sometime that April. While they were involved, Hogan lived with several people in a house on 81st Avenue in Peoria, including Mary Keovorabouth, Ouday (aka Tim) Panmany, Vincent Macchirella, Richard Valdez, Coyle Brown, and Abraham Hermosillo. No one who lived in the house in Peoria worked. Keovorabouth, Panmany, Hermosillo, and Macchirella earned money by selling drugs. Macchirella also sold rottweiler dogs. Hogan had no source of income.

The offence

Lamar and Hogan’s group had devised a plan, about a week prior, to jump Jones, steal his possessions, and scare him so that he would stop spending time with Hogan.

On May 11, 1996, Lamar confronted Ronald Jones when Jones entered the house. Jones responded that he did not know that Hogan was Lamar’s girlfriend and denied any involvement with her. Lamar punched Jones, and Jones fell to the floor. Macchirella pointed a gun at Jones. Lamar ordered Hermosillo to get duct tape. Hermosillo retrieved duct tape and tied Jones’s hands and ankles. Lamar, Macchirella, and Hermosillo moved Jones into a bedroom and took Jones’s possessions, including his shoes, jewelry, fifty dollars, and some rockcocaine. Lamar demanded the gun from Macchirella, explaining that he had done this before.

Jones cried and pleaded for his life, offering his possessions and a check if they would let him go. The group then led Jones upstairs and held him captive while everyone watched television and took turns guarding Jones with the gun. Once it became dark, Lamar and the others led Jones downstairs and to the passenger seat of Jones’s own car. Lamar directed Macchirella to drive to Lamar’s old neighborhood near 35th Avenue and Broadway. Lamar sat behind Jones in the car, holding a gun to Jones’s head.

At one point, Lamar pulled the trigger, but the gun did not fire. When Jones heard the click of the gun, Jones cried and pleaded for his life. After driving farther down the road, Lamar directed Macchirella to stop the car. Macchirella stopped the car near a vacant lot. Lamar ordered Macchirella to open the trunk and Macchirella complied.

Lamar shot Jones twice: first in the back of the head and then in the forehead after Jones fell to the ground. Lamar and Macchirella picked Jones up and placed him in the trunk. Hermosillo, Panmany, and Valdez were approximately one block away when they heard gunshot sounds. Lamar had already shot and placed Jones in the trunk when Hermosillo, Panmany, and Valdez arrived. Someone asked what happened, and Lamar responded by opening the trunk and pointing to Jones’s body.

The group decided to move Jones’s car and bury Jones’s body. Hermosillo retrieved a shovel, and at Lamar’s direction Macchirella dug a hole. Lamar, Hermosillo, Panmany, and Valdez dragged Jones’s body to the grave and buried him, covering the hole with dirt and brush. Jones’s car would not start, so they pushed it to a gravel pit where they decided to bury the body. The group removed some belongings from Jones’s car, including a cellular phone, a radio, a CD player, a toolbox, and a tool belt. They then made a gas bomb and set Jones’s car on fire.

In the earlier narrative of the incident, Lamar’s girlfriend brought the victim to her Peoria apartment where Lamar and his accomplices were waiting. At the apartment, Lamar beat the victim, then held him at gunpoint while his accomplices robbed him of his cash and street drugs. Lamar ordered his accomplices to bind the victim with duct tape. They held the victim hostage the entire afternoon and into the night, and the victim cried and pleaded for his life. Lamar made derogatory comments concerning the victim’s race and then put him, still bound with duct tape and pleading for his life, in his own car. As they drove to another part of town, Lamar sat in the rear seat holding a gun to the victim’s head. When they arrived, Lamar took the victim from the car and shot him in the head twice, killing him. Lamar and his accomplices put the victim’s body in the car trunk and eventually brought it to an abandoned lot and buried it. They took the victim’s valuables from the car before setting it on fire and abandoning it. Lamar joked about the body in the trunk before disposing of it, and later bragged about the size of the gunshot holes in the victim’s head.

Investigation

Arrest

Trial

The proceedings included:

• Presiding Judge: Stephen A. Gerst
• Prosecutor: Cleve Lynch
• Defense Counsel: James Cleary
• Defense Counsel: Christopher DuPont
• Start of Trial: November 15, 1999
• Verdict: December 10, 1999

Sentencing

Sentencing occurred on June 1, 2001.

Aggravating Circumstances were:

• Pecuniary gain
• Especially cruel, heinous and depraved
• Committed while on supervised release from prison

Mitigating Circumstances were:

• No statutory mitigating circumstances found.
• Non-statutory mitigating factors found, but insufficient to call for leniency: Defendant's mental health issues; Dysfunctional family/difficult childhood; Good character.

Appeals

PUBLISHED OPINIONS indicated:

• Direct Appeal pending before the Arizona Supreme Court
• STATE OF ARIZONA, Appellee v. CHRISTOPHER GEORGE THEODORE LAMAR, Appellant.

Outcome

Lamar was sentenced to death on June 1, 2001 (ADC# 159213).

Other details

The group included Myla Hogan, Mary Keovorabouth, Ouday (aka Tim) Panmany, Vincent Macchirella, Richard Valdez, Coyle Brown, and Abraham Hermosillo. Ronald Jones had planned to deliver documents to a loan company and left his house around 1:00 p.m., telling Alicia Sosa, his live-in girlfriend, that he planned to deliver documents to a loan company. Hogan called Jones’s pager and asked Jones if he would like to go to lunch. Jones picked Hogan up at her house on 81st Avenue, and the two ate lunch together at Sonic. When Hogan and Jones returned from lunch, Keovorabouth, Hermosillo, Macchirella, Valdez, Panmany, and Lamar were all at the house.