Marinucci again sentenced to life in prison with no parole

Angela Marinucci was resentenced Wednesday to life in prison without parole for the 2010 torture slaying of a mentally disabled woman.

The resentencing was prompted by an appeals court ruling that it is unconstitutional to impose a mandatory sentence of life without parole on juvenile offenders. Judge Rita Hathaway said the court gave her the discretion to impose life without parole, as long as it was not a mandatory sentence.

And that's what Hathaway did with Marinucci on Wednesday, who was 17 at the time of her arrest.

Defense attorney Mike DeMatt said Marinucci will appeal.

Hathaway said she still has nightmares about the case in which Marinucci, now 22, and five others were convicted of holding 30-year-old Jennifer Daugherty captive for two days and beating and eventually killing her in a Greensburg apartment.

“If ever a case cried out to sentence life in prison without parole, it is this case,” Hathaway said.

The judge spent about an hour summarizing testimony from Marinucci's trial as the basis for the sentence she imposed Wednesday.

Hathaway recounted testimony, some of it in great detail, about how the group of six roommates humiliated, beat, tortured and stabbed Daugherty to death before her body, bound in Christmas decorations, was discarded in a trash can.

At one point, Hathaway told a story about how she was unable to deal with having to walk on crutches after a knee injury because of testimony from the Marinucci trial.

“Now, to this day when I see a metal crutch, I recoil because I can see Jennifer Daugherty beaten with a metal crutch,” Hathaway said.

Daugherty's family members said they were pleased that it appears that Marinucci will remain in prison for the rest of her life.

“Angela is just a bad person. Sometimes people are just bad,” said Joy Burkholder, Daugherty's sister.

During a hearing on the resentencing held Tuesday, the defense asked Hathaway to impose a sentence that would have allowed Marinucci to eventually earn parole, saying she could be rehabilitated in prison and that she was sorry for her actions.

But Hathaway noted Wednesday that Marinucci told two medical experts that she was only minimally involved in the Daugherty kidnapping and murder.

The judge said evidence from the case indicated Marinucci was a key player and agreed with the prosecution's position that had she been just a few months older at the time of the crime, she would likely have been subjected to the death penalty.

Two of her co-defendants, Ricky Smyrnes and Melvin Knight, were sentenced to death in the case.

Rich Cholodofsky is a staff writer for Trib Total Media.