Pa. court reverses death sentence in gruesome murder

The state Supreme Court reversed a death sentence of a Coatesville man convicted of fatally shooting his teenage neighbor in 2008 and dismembering the body with a chainsaw.

The Supreme Court justices did not question the conviction of LaQuanta Chapman, 36, but they said prosecutors misidentified previous New Jersey convictions as felonies, which led to the death sentence, according to an opinion issued Tuesday.

The high court, which in December upheld a death-penalty moratorium imposed by Gov. Wolf, returned the case to Chester County Court, ordering it to give Chapman a life sentence.

New Jersey does not use the term "felony." Instead, it uses a grading system ranging from "crime of the first degree" to "crime of the fourth degree." Chapman's prior convictions in the state were fourth-degree crimes, the least serious of these, according to Tuesday's opinion.

In Chester County, Chapman was convicted of first-degree murder and related charges and sentenced to death in 2012 for the murder of Aaron Turner, 16.

Turner was shot to death, and Chapman disposed of the dismembered remnants of the body in the trash with the help of a cousin.

Weeks after the killing, police got a search warrant to investigate drug sales from Chapman's home. They found Chapman's blood-stained clothing in a garbage bag, a .25-caliber shell casing and human tissue.

Police said that while Chapman was in jail awaiting trial he confessed to killing Turner. Chapman has continued to maintain his innocence.

On Dec. 21 the state Supreme Court upheld Wolf's moratorium. He imposed it in February 2015, saying the state's "capital punishment system has significant and widely recognized defects" and was "ineffective, unjust, and expensive."

He said he would await the results of a legislative commission's report on the death penalty.

Michaelle Bond