BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- A judge Monday sentenced rapist and serial killer Michael B. Ross to die in the electric chair next month for strangling four teenage girls.
Showing no emotion, Ross, 28, stood with hands manacled as Superior Court Judge G. Sarsfield Ford handed down the sentence that could make Ross the first to be exeuted in Connecticut since 1960.
Ford told Ross he would be taken to the state prison in Somers in about 20 days and on or about Aug. 14, 'You shall have the punishment of death inflicted on you by electrocution.'
The defense has already filed appeal motions and the execution of Ross could be delayed at least two years. In addition, the death sentence is automatically reviewed by the state Supreme Court.
Ross, the son of a prosperous egg farmer, admitted the slayings but his attorneys said he was insane at the time, the victim of verbal and physical child abuse at the hands of a cruel mother.
Sarsfield was bound by law to impose the death sentence after a jury last month convicted Ross of strangling the four young women in 1983 and 1984 after raping three of them.
There were no outbursts in the courtroom and relatives of the victims were seen nodding their heads in agreement and some were in tears.
