DEDHAM, Mass. -- Former Tufts University professor William Douglas, called a 'prisoner of sex and dope and intrigue' by his attorney, was sentenced today to 18 to 20 years in prison for the sledgehammer murder of a prostitute.
Douglas, 42, pleaded guilty last week to manslaughter in the death of Robin Benedict just as he was about to go on trial in Norfolk Superior Court for first-degree murder.
Douglas admitted he hit the Combat Zone prostitute in the head with a sledgehammer during a March 5, 1983, argument in his Sharon home. He told prosecutors he disposed of the body in a trash dumpster.
John Kivland, the assistant Norfolk County district attorney, sought the 18-to-20-year maximum sentence, saying Miss Benedict was 'tossed aside like trash.' He said Douglas tried to cover his actions by sending a telegram in the woman's name claiming she was working in Las Vegas.
Defense attorney Thomas Troy, who argued the former anatomy professor possessed scientific knowledge, asked Donahue to sentence Douglas to five to 15 years.
Troy portrayed Douglas as 'a Samson who met his Delilah.'
'A gentle, sensitive, educated man left his Alice in Wonderland of the scientific world for the Combat Zone's world of sin and sex,' he said of Douglas, who was a client of Ms. Benedict, 21, a $100-an-hour prostitute in Boston's red light district known as the Combat Zone.
'And there, Samson met his Delilah. Bill Douglas met his downfall - a paramour for pay. His child-like infatuation made Bill Douglas a prisoner of sex an dope and intrigue.'
Douglas admitted to the March 1983 sledgehammer slaying as part of an agreement with the Benedict family. The family said they would agree to a lesser charge, but wanted to know where he dumped Ms. Benedict's body.
All that investigators ever found of the woman was brain tissue discovered in her car.
After he admitted to the crime, Douglas said he wrapped Ms. Benedict's body in a blanket and stuffed it in a dumpster at a Providence, R.I., shopping mall. Despite two false leads, officials have been hard-pressed to locate the dumpster in use at the time, and find out where it was a emptied.
Troy said he would describe Douglas, who taught at Tufts' medical school until he was charged with bilking thousands of dollars in university money to pay the prostitute, as a victim too.
'His life became a clock -- a clock that ticked to the tune of $100 an hour,' Troy's planned speech said.
