Jury approves death penalty for Scott Eizember

EL RENO, Okla. (AP) -- A Canadian County jury Friday sentenced convicted killer Scott Eizember to death for killing an elderly Depew man.<br/><br/>The jury had convicted Eizember on Tuesday of first-degree

Monday, February 21st 2005, 1:07 pm

By: News On 6

EL RENO, Okla. (AP) -- A Canadian County jury Friday sentenced convicted killer Scott Eizember to death for killing an elderly Depew man.

The jury had convicted Eizember on Tuesday of first-degree murder in the October 2003 beating death of 76-year-old AJ Cantrell in his home Depew. Jurors began deliberating Friday morning shortly after 11, the verdict was returned shortly after 2 Friday afternoon.

Eizember was convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Cantrell's 70-year-old wife, Patsy, and the jury sentenced him to 150 years in prison for that crime.

Creek County assistant District Attorney Mike Loeffler urged the jury to sentence Eizember to death. He told jurors to consider the physical act of Eizember using the stock of a shotgun to beat Cantrell and called it a heinous, atrocious and cruel act.

Defense attorney Tim Laughlin asked the jury to sentence Eizember to life in prison. Laughlin says there are no excuses, but asked jurors to consider that Eizember's mother and stepmother died when he was a child and his father was an alcoholic.

Prosecutors say Eizember broke into the Cantrell's home to wait for his former girlfriend to return to her mother's home across the street.

The trial was moved from Creek County to Canadian County because of pretrial publicity.