SEATTLE -- Convicted mass murderer Benjamin Ng was spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison by the same jury that found him guilty in the execution-style slayings of 13 people at a Chinatown gambling den.
When the jurors' decision was announced Thursday, Ng, 20, maintained the stone-cold expression he held throughout the speedy, six-day trial and one-day sentencing phase.
But his mother, sisters and girlfriend huddled together in the back of the crowded courtroom and cried. Defense attorneys John Henry Browne and David Wohl, who won few victories in the trial, threw their hands up in the air with joy.
'We're happy,' an out-of-breath Wohl said. 'We sort of hugged him (Ben), he didn't hug back. Benjamin's not a real emotive person.'
Following a day of emotional pleas for leniency from the Chinese immigrant's mother and lawyers, the eight-man, four-woman jury announced that it was unable to reach a unanimous decision that Ng be sentenced to die.
The jury, as a result, automatically recommended he spend the rest of his life in prison without parole. King County Superior Court Judge Frank Howard will formally announce the sentence at a later date.
Wohl said an appeal of Ng's murder conviction was likely.
'It's not automatic, but we'll probably do it,' he said, 'because we think there are good issues on appeal.'
Members of the families of the 12 men and one woman who died during the bloody robbery-slaying inside the Wah Mee gambling den were bitter.
'I'm very disappointed,' Linda Mar, 26, who lost her parents Jean and Moo Min Mar in the carnage at the Wah Mee, said. 'I still think he should have gotten the death penalty. He deserves to die. He killed both of my parents.'
Marcheta Chin, the widow of victim Henning Chin, said: 'I was disappointed because so many people were killed. But it had to go one way or the other. It won't bring my husband back either way.'
'It's very, very difficult for 12 individuals to agree that a person deserves to die for the crime committed,' King County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Robert Lasnik said.
Jurors, who reached a guilty verdict after 2 hours, took the same amount of time to realize they were unable to agree unanimously on the death penalty.
The defense attorney, who argued all along Ng never fired a weapon and was taking orders from co-defendant Kwan Fai 'Willie' Mak, 22, introduced into the record a confession Mak gave to police after his arrest, stating, 'I shot them all.'
The statement was not admitted during the first phase of the trial because Mak, whose trial begins Sept. 12, later repudiated the statement and said he was outside the club when the shooting began.
Mak and Ng were arrested the morning after 13 people were found slaughtered at the Chinatown gambling club. A third suspect, Wai Chiu 'Tony' Ng, 26, remains at large.
