RICHMOND, Va. -- A jury brought in from Norfolk because of extensive pretrial publicity deliberated only about an hour Friday before deciding convicted killer Timothy Spencer should get his third death sentence.
The jury had convicted Spencer 24 hours earlier for the October 1987 strangulation murder of Dr. Susan Hellams who was a neurosurgeon resident at the Medical College of Virginia.
Spencer who earned the moniker "Southside Strangler" for a string of Richmond-area incidents already faces two other capital murder convictions for the murders of an Arlington woman Susan Tucker and another Richmond victim, Debbie Davis.
He also faces trial later this year for the rape and murder of a Chesterfield County teenager Diane Cho Spencer's also been conclusively linked to a Northern Virginia rape and murder but will not be formally charged with that crime because of the multiplicity of death sentences.
Spencer was linked to the crime scenes through revolutionary DNA testing or genetic fingerprinting DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid is the basic genetic material found in each cell With the exception of identical twins each person has a unique DNA pattern.
