Ohio Sentences Craigslist Killer to Death

A self-styled street preacher who teamed up with a high school student in a deadly plot to lure men with bogus Craigslist job offers has been sentenced to death. A judge in Akron sentenced 53-year-old Richard Beasley today; the jury that convicted him recommended last week that he be executed. Beasley was convicted of teaming up with a teenager in 2011 to lure men with offers of farmhand jobs in southeast Ohio. Three men were killed and a fourth wounded.

Co-defendant Brogan Rafferty, then 16, was too young to face the death penalty, and was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole last year. All the victims were down-and-out men looking for a fresh start, prosecutors said repeatedly during the trial. Survivor Scott Davis, now 49, testified that he heard the click of a gun as he walked in front of Beasley at the "job site" in Noble County. Davis, who was shot in the arm, knocked the weapon aside, fled into the woods, and tipped off police. (More death penalty stories.)