Mom to murderer: `You killed my baby'
Jason...@virgin.net
Mom to murderer: `You killed my baby'
Killer of 2 at UM gets death sentence
By ALLISON KLEIN
Herald Staff Writer
Minutes before Labrant Dennis heard his death sentence
Friday for the bloody
murder of his ex-girlfriend and a University of Miami
football player, he erupted in
rage, pounding on a table and screaming, ``This is bull!''
Despite being surrounded by officers, he didn't hold his
temper as family and
friends of UM linebacker Marlin Barnes and Timwanika
Lumpkins faced him at a
courtroom podium, calling him a coward and telling him he
would ``meet his
maker.''
``You are a coward, liar, murderer and thief. You killed my
baby,'' said Barnes'
mother Charlie Postell. ``You are a selfish, evil person
and you remind me of a
serpent slithering about. Marlin is more of a man than you
will ever be, even in his
death.''
The emotional statements from Postell and three others came
just before
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Manuel Crespo sentenced Dennis to
death for fatally
beating the couple with the butt of a rifle in Barnes'
on-campus apartment April 13,
1996.
In his sentencing order, Crespo said Dennis beat Barnes so
severely that every
bone in his face was broken; the rifle stock cracked into
pieces as he struck
Lumpkins on the head.
Dennis' lawyer, Ron Guralnick, said he objected to Crespo's
decision to allow the
victims' relatives and friends to vent their anger on
Dennis before the sentencing.
``There is no legal precedent to permit the family to make
a statement today, for
my client to be insulted,'' Guralnick said. ``In spite of
the fevered pitch in the
courtroom today, this is not a death penalty case. I don't
believe he committed the
crime. This case will be reversed on appeal.''
Crespo said he believed the families had a right to face
Dennis and express their
feelings.
But that venting caused Dennis to lose his temper. After
the third speaker finished
at the podium, Dennis looked agitated and whispered to
Guralnick he was ``this
close,'' holding his index finger and thumb an inch apart.
The fourth speaker, Dekiesha Williams, Lumpkins' best
friend, sent him over the
brink.
When she accused him of repeatedly beating Lumpkins and
once smashing her
car, Dennis lost his temper, pounded on the table and
screamed at her: ``Who
paid for it? This is bull!''
The case automatically will be reviewed by the Florida
Supreme Court.
A Miami-Dade jury convicted Dennis on Oct. 28 of the
first-degree murders of
Barnes and Lumpkins, both 22. On Dec. 2, the jury
recommended Dennis, 26, die
in the electric chair. He fainted when he heard the
recommendation.
Before announcing that he would go along with the jury,
Crespo read a 12-page
order detailing the crime and explaining his decision.
Crespo said Dennis planned the murder by borrowing a gun
from an acquaintance,
and a car from a friend. He stalked the couple on their
last night out on South
Beach, then broke into the apartment, smashing Barnes on
the head until he
slumped on the floor by the door.
Then, Crespo said, Dennis went to the bedroom to find
Lumpkins. Evidence
indicates she was either hiding between the bed and
nightstand or cowering under
the bed.
Crime scene photos were so bloody they caused some jurors
to cry when
prosecutors displayed them during the penalty phase of the
trial.
Dennis, wearing a red prison jumpsuit, white and blue
sneakers and long
sideburns, looked Crespo straight in the eyes as he read
his sentencing order. He
occasionally rubbed his brow.
``Labrant Deshawn Dennis had a cold, calculated and
premeditated plan to kill
both victims without any pretense of moral or legal
justification,'' Crespo said. ``By
his actions, the defendant has forfeited his right to
live.''
He said Lumpkins, who was the mother of Dennis' child, must
have known she
was going to die.
``It is impossible to comprehend a more interminable and
horrible time for this
young woman. With each blow life was being slowly and
forcibly taken out of her
until finally there was none left,'' Crespo said. ``One can
hardly imagine a crime
more conscienceless, pitiless or more unnecessarily
torturous to the victim.''
Lumpkins' father spoke at the podium Friday wearing a
leather cord around his
neck attached to a picture of his daughter and
granddaughter, Antoneisha, 5.
``There is so much hate in my heart for you that sometimes
it scares me. I ain't in
the forgiving business,'' Dewayne Lee told Dennis. ``Your
master Satan has
deserted you and you will burn.''
After the trial he added: ``I don't think he has any
remorse. He just got caught.''
Also speaking at the hearing was Barnes' former best friend
and roommate, Earl
Little, now a cornerback for the New Orleans Saints. He
found the bodies.
``Nobody in this room seen what I saw. The death penalty is
too quick for you,''
Little told Dennis. ``If you're such a man, why didn't you
act like it? If you were a
man, you would have left them alone.''
After the trial, Barnes' mother said it wasn't difficult to
face Dennis in the
courtroom because she has wanted to do it since the murders
three years ago.
``We got what we wanted today,'' Postell said. ``We were
waiting for this day.
Now he's going to take that little walk and I know I'll be
happy again some day.''