Mom who smothered 2 young sons and killed husband with sword to be sentenced
A Rowland Heights woman who smothered her two young sons with a pillow and killed her husband with a sword as they slept was expected to be sentenced to death today.
After five days of deliberations, the six-man, six-woman Pomona Superior Court jury recommended in August that Manling Tsang Williams, 32, be sentenced to death for the August 2007 killings of her 27-year-old husband, Neal, and sons, Ian, 3, and Devon, 7.
A separate jury in 2010 convicted Williams of three counts of first- degree murder and found true the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and lying in wait. But that panel deadlocked on what sentence to recommend, with eight of the 12 jurors favoring a death sentence.
During closing arguments in the penalty phase of Williams' retrial, Deputy District Attorney Stacy Okun-Wiese told jurors that the accused waited for her family members to go to sleep and then "went in for the kill."
The young mother -- 29 at the time -- put on a pair of gloves, took a pillow and held it over her 3-year-old son's mouth and nose until he lost consciousness, the prosecutor said. Williams then climbed the bunk bed stairs to her oldest son's bed and put the pillow over his nose and mouth as she took "every last breath of air he has," Okun-Wiese told jurors.
The prosecutor alleged that Williams returned to her computer, checked out the MySpace page of the lover who had suggested that she get a divorce, went out with friends, then came back home and chose the heaviest, sharpest sword in the house to attack her sleeping husband on Aug. 8, 2007.
"The defendant killed her own family for no reason other than her selfishness," Okun-Wiese told jurors, adding that Williams "wanted to be free" to be with the man with whom she was infatuated in high school.
Defense attorney Thomas Althaus countered that his client would forever suffer from the consequences of what she did and said she would be "severely punished" for the murders.
"I'm not saying she didn't commit the crimes," Williams' attorney said. But he disputed the prosecution's contention that the killings were premeditated, noting his client's statement that everything happened after a fight.
Althaus said his client, who previously had been described as a kind and caring woman, experienced learning disabilities, difficulties in school, physical abuse and repeated criticism while struggling her entire life to please her mother.
He noted that she had no prior history of violent criminal activity and urged jurors not to let anger or emotion dictate their decision.
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_19774144
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