A federal jury Thursday found an inmate guilty of murdering his cellmate in the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta, allowing the capital case to proceed to the sentencing phase.
Brian Richardson, incarcerated for armed bank robberies, stabbed and strangled Steven Obara inside their cell because Obara was a pedophile. Obara, 60, was serving time for child pornography and child molestation.
Since 1997, federal juries in Atlanta have imposed two death sentences --against an inmate who killed a prison guard and a North Georgia man who raped and killed a nurse practitioner.
Richardson, his face and shaved head covered with tattoos, told FBI agents he hated pedophiles and killed Obara because he was one and wouldn't stop talking about children. After killing Obara, Richardson shaved and then called guards to the cell, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill McKinnon told the jury during opening statements.
With a knife fashioned from a fire extinguisher pin, Richardson stabbed Obara repeatedly before choking him with his hands and strangling him with a sock in July 2007, McKinnon said.
Obara had wound up in the wrong cell with the wrong inmate, McKinnon told jurors. "He was murdered because of who he was -- a child molester."
Richardson's lawyer, Jake Waldrop, said Richardson was not guilty of first-degree murder. He asked jurors to consider lesser murder or manslaughter charges, which would not subject Richardson to the death penalty.
By convicting Richardson of first-degree murder, the federal jury allowed the capital case to go forward to its sentencing phase, scheduled to start on Tuesday.
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