A judge on Thursday began charting the path to death row for a man who killed his girlfriend in Hawthorne because he believed she was pregnant.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Dabney, though, will make his final decision on Ricky Madison's fate on July 9.
Madison, 49, was convicted in May by an Airport Courthouse jury of murder and the special circumstance of torture in the Dec. 5, 2006, death of Aysha Sly.
The same jury recommended that he die for his crimes.
Madison and the 26-year-old mother of two were dating, although Madison was married, according to Deputy District Attorney Danette Meyers, who prosecuted Madison along with Deputy District Attorney Heather Steggell.
After Sly told Madison she was pregnant, he got her an apartment in the 12200 block of Manor Drive, Meyers said.
On the day of her death, Madison and a friend, Kenneth Mitchell, went to the apartment.
"We believe that Mr. Madison just wanted to get rid of Ms. Sly," Meyers added.
She was stabbed 172 times.
A deputy medical examiner testified during trial that 19 to 23 of the wounds in and of themselves could be considered fatal, and that her head/upper chest and abdomen were targeted.
The majority of the injuries, it seemed, were inflicted before she died. Defensive wounds and testimony from witnesses who heard screaming corroborated the finding.
While Sly probably did not know it at the time, she miscarried a day or two before she was killed. She was no more than two months pregnant when she miscarried.
Madison was seen leaving her apartment, casually walking away with a beer in his hand.
Madison and Mitchell went on trial at the same time, but before separate juries.
Mitchell's jury found him not guilty of the murder. He initially denied his involvement to detectives, but then said he walked in on Madison attacking Sly.
The jury hearing Madison's case convicted him of murder, but did not find true an allegation that he personally used a knife.
Madison's attorney, Donald Calabria, argued to Dabney on Thursday that the jury's death recommendation should be reduced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Calabria said there was insufficient evidence to prove the torture allegation and that the jury's failure to find that Madison used the knife shows he may have not been the one who carried out the killing.
But Meyers countered that the "horrific" circumstances of the case warrant capital punishment.
"To sit down and say this is not torture belies reason," Meyers said. "He deserves everything the jury said he should get."
In denying the defense request, Dabney reiterated the facts of the slaying, and noted Madison's criminal history includes a 1981 manslaughter conviction for the stabbing death of his girlfriend and a 1985 assault conviction for shooting a pregnant girlfriend in the neck. She survived.
Madison also has numerous convictions for various theft and drug-related crimes.
The circumstances of Sly's murder and Madison's past outweigh the mitigating factors in his favor - namely that he may have been drunk at the time of Sly's murder and that his parents were absent from his childhood, Dabney said.
Dabney still has to decide, though, if he will sign Madison's death warrant.
Sly's family, along with three jurors, were in court - and some of them spoke.
Ayesha Latrice Sly told Madison that when he killed her sister, he took away her "other half."
"When she was taken away from me suddenly and abruptly, it effected my soul," she said while holding a poster-size photograph of her sister. "Those stab wounds that you inflicted upon her were inflicted upon me."
While she spoke, some in the audience, including Sly's 11-year-old daughter, sobbed. Madison looked at her as he did each speaker, nodding slightly.
Most the family members told Madison that God will judge him, no matter what his punishment, and that they support the jury's recommendation.
"He brings no remorse, apology or acceptance of guilt," Sly's eldest sister, Zakiyyah Sabiee-Hasan, said of Madison. "I feel that death is justified."
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