Jury Urges Life Term for Tobacco Heir; Judge Expected to Concur

FORT MYERS, Fla. —  The jury that found Steven Wayne Benson guilty of the pipe-bomb murder of his wealthy mother and adopted brother recommended Friday that he serve a life prison sentence.

The panel of 10 women and two men could have recommended that Benson, heir to a tobacco fortune, die in the electric chair. Instead, after deliberating two hours, they chose to spare his life.

However Benson’s life term will mean a mandatory 25 years before he has any chance of parole.

Circuit Judge Hugh Hayes, who must approve the punishment, said his agreement is likely. “It is more than safe to assure you that your advisory verdict will be followed,” he told the jury. He tentatively scheduled sentencing for Sept. 2.

Benson, a 35-year-old father of three, barely flinched when the decision was announced.

Plea for Life

Two hours earlier, his attorney, Michael McDonnell, implored jurors to “spare three little children the horror of knowing their father was executed.”

Prosecutor Jerry Brock, on the other hand, argued for the death penalty, likening Benson to Judas, only worse.

“What crime known to man is more reprehensible than taking the life of the person who gave you life?” Brock asked. “It sends goose bumps up my back.”

After their decision was announced, jurors, who had been sequestered during deliberations, were excused and ushered to their cars by bailiffs. They refused to comment.

The trial, which was moved here from Naples, 30 miles to the south, because of intense publicity, lasted a month. On Thursday, the jury had convicted Benson of planting two foot-long pipe bombs in the family’s heavy-duty wagon and setting them off on the morning of July 9, 1985, after coaxing his mother, Margaret Benson; adopted brother, Scott Benson, and sister, Carol Lynn Benson Kendall, inside. Kendall, 40, survived to testify that her brother, a failing businessman, stole from his mother and was about to be disinherited.

Sister’s Opinion Sought

Thursday, she was contacted by prosecutors and asked her opinion about what punishment--life in prison or death--she wanted for her brother.

She made no choice, said her attorney, Richard Cirace of Boston.

“She’s trying to figure out what her mother would have wanted, and that is a hard thing to consider,” the lawyer said.

Margaret Benson’s sister--Janet Murphy of Lancaster, Pa.--however, asked prosecutors to push for execution.

“I never had one moment of sympathy,” she told The Fort Myers News Press. “To me, (Steven) was no longer a relative. He was just a horrible man who had killed my sister and Scotty.

“All he ever talked about was money. Every conversation was money and about how much stuff cost.”

Patriarch Blames Self

Murphy had attended the final day of the trial, along with Harry Hitchcock, 89, the family patriarch who made his fortune trading cigar tobacco.

Hitchcock, a deeply religious man with bushy white hair, refused to suggest a punishment for his grandson.

Instead, he blamed himself.

“I think I hadn’t been much of a witness and a missionary to my family . . .” he said. “That’s the thing that bothers me. Me and so many others go far afield with our witness and neglect a witness to our family.”