Even if the Manhattan case against Kadyrov had inexplicably imploded, the Bronx DA would have had a hold on him for the murders of Dolores Atkins, Detective Brock, and Vinnie Cassino, the latter based on the same recording that Karp had used during the trial with Kadyrov boasting he’d taken the blue silk shirt from the apartment where he’d “killed them two bitches in Manhattan.”
The Manhattan case had, of course, not imploded. By the defense attorneys’ and their clients’ faces after final summations in the guilt phase, Karp thought the metaphor of a lopsided heavyweight fight may have occurred to them. The only difference was that in a prizefight, the referee inside the ring would have probably stopped it. But Karp had kept raining blows, right down to connecting Kadyrov’s Chechen childhood to the things he said to women he attacked.
After the guilty verdict, Judge Dermondy announced that the trial would now move into the death penalty phase, which would be run much like a regular “trial within a trial.” The prosecution would first present its case of “aggravating factors”-essentially the reasons why Kadyrov “deserved” death over life in prison. Then the defense would present its case of “mitigating factors”-the reasons why he should be spared. After that, the order would be reversed, with the defense giving its summation followed by the prosecution. The jury would then weigh the aggravating factors against the mitigating, and whichever proved more convincing would decide Kadyrov’s fate.
There were two main aggravating factors Karp and Guma concentrated on. The first was that Kadyrov had committed the murders while in the commission of other felonies-burglary and rape-to eliminate the witnesses. The other was that the murders had been particularly heinous and inhumane.
Guma handled presenting the evidence for the aggravating factors. The first was easy to prove. Items had been taken from the apartment and the bodies of the victims, making it a burglary. AME Manning had been re-called to the stand to describe in much more detail than she had during the guilt phase the sexual assault on Olivia Yancy.
Under Guma’s careful questioning, Manning testified that in her examination of the crime scene, it was evident to her that “from her position on the bed, Olivia Yancy had a clear view of the assault on Beth Jenkins.”
“Is there anything that would cause you to doubt that Ahmed Kadyrov murdered Beth Jenkins before raping and killing Olivia Yancy, as was testified to by Lydia Cassino during the guilt phase of this trial?” Guma had asked.
“No. In fact, there are indications that Olivia Yancy struggled for quite some time before she was murdered,” Manning replied. “Such as deep bruising, and even cuts, from where she struggled against her bonds, and hemorrhaging of the blood vessels in her eyes. It would make sense that she struggled to get free as she watched her mother being murdered.”
“Can you estimate the length of time it took Ahmed Kadyrov to kill Beth Jenkins?”
Manning pursed her lips and thought about the question for a moment. “Again, there is evidence of a struggle, which means that she wasn’t stabbed in rapid succession or she would have collapsed on the spot. In fact, of the five stab wounds she suffered, two would have been almost debilitating; the other three might have killed her eventually, but she would have been able to fight. So it stands to reason that she received the two worst blows near the end.”
“All of which-the screams and curses, the vicious blows, the blood and terror-would have been easily visible to Olivia Yancy as she struggled against her bonds?” Guma asked.
“Yes.”
“And all of this would take how long?”
Manning shrugged. “I’d estimate several minutes from the start of the attack to her collapsing to the floor. It would have taken another five or so minutes after that for her to bleed out, lose consciousness, and die.”
“Dr. Manning, what would it be like to watch someone bleed out?” Guma asked.
“Well, the body twitches and spasms,” Manning said. “Until the victim loses consciousness, they may cry out, groan, or otherwise indicate extreme pain. The victim may even go quiet for a moment and then suddenly resume more spasms and sounds. Not pleasant to watch.”
With Manning still on the stand, Guma then turned to the attack on Olivia Yancy. Soon many of the women on the jury and some of the men were weeping as the assistant medical examiner described how she was able to determine that the young woman was raped “before and after death.”
Although soft-spoken and unemotional in her delivery, Manning held nothing back in her description of Olivia Yancy’s death. “The killer was astride her while she lay prone on the bed, her wrists bound behind her. He then pulled her head back by the hair-we were able to determine where hair follicles had been pulled out from being yanked-and then cut her throat from her left to right.”
“How deep?” Guma asked.
“Enough to sever almost all of the structures of her neck-muscles, trachea, veins, arteries-and most of the way through her spinal cord.”
“And what sensations would the victim have experienced?”
“Well, the first is physical pain. Imagine cutting yourself with a very sharp knife,” Manning replied. “Only this goes deep through the muscles and the windpipe and into the spinal column. But even with a sharp knife, it’s not easy to cut through a human neck, and there was some sawing and tearing.”
Manning paused and needed a moment to regroup as she reached for a cup of water on the witness stand. Sitting at the prosecution table, Karp felt for the woman. He’d known her for most of his career and was aware that behind the doctor’s scientific demeanor was a woman who felt deeply for each victim and had made it her life’s work to bring them justice.
Guma waited for her to gather herself and then asked gently, “Please continue.”
“Yes, well, when the trachea-what we sometimes call the windpipe-is severed, the victim suffers the sensation of being suffocated, because there is not enough air being pulled into the lungs, as well as drowning, due to the blood that is draining into the airways.”
“And would the victim have been aware of what was happening to her?” Guma asked.
“I’m sure she was,” Manning replied. “This was not a particularly fast death. I’m sure she experienced a great deal of terror, as well as enormous pain and suffering. She was certainly aware of the sexual assault prior to having her throat cut and may have still been alive, possibly conscious, during the sexual assault afterward.”
Guma, who had never been afraid to show his emotions in a courtroom, turned with his eyes blazing to Kadyrov. “Are there any other atrocities committed by this defendant on Olivia Yancy that you haven’t discussed yet?”
“Yes,” replied Manning, who dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “The victim’s ring finger on her left hand was severed in order for the defendant to remove her wedding and engagement rings.”
“And other than the obvious disgusting nature of that act, what stands out about it to you?” Guma asked.
Manning took a deep breath and then let it out with a sigh. “Judging from the blood loss,” she said, “she was still alive when he cut it off.”
During the mitigation phase of the sentencing hearing, Kadyrov’s attorneys pulled out the usual litany of mitigating factors, including that he was on drugs at the time of the murders and that he suffered from a “mental defect” that had caused him to act out.
The “mental defect” excuse was discussed at great length by two psychologists and a psychiatrist, who pointed to X-rays and CAT scans of Kadyrov’s brain and said “abnormalities” in certain spots could have caused him to act psychotically. Therefore, executing him would be “tantamount to executing a disabled person for acts they could not stop.”
Karp asked the psychiatrist if anything on the X-rays or CAT scan proved that the supposed abnormalities “caused him to stalk, assault, rape, and murder” the two victims.
“It’s possible, in my opinion,” the psychiatrist said.