FORT PIERCE — A jury is now deliberating whether to recommend life in prison or the death penalty for Andrew Gosciminski, a man they convicted earlier this week at the end of his second trial for the 2002 Hutchinson Island murder of Joan Loughman.

Loughman, 55, was stabbed to death in September 2002 inside her father’s house the day before she was scheduled to return to Connecticut. Loughman had come to Florida to place her father at Lyford Cove, the assisted-living facility where Gosciminski worked.

Jurors this morning heard closing arguments in the penalty phase of the trial. Assistant State Attorney Lynn Park told jurors to recommend a death sentence and outlined four factors she said were proven during the trial – that Gosciminski murdered Looughman with cold,calculated premeditation, that the manner in which she was killed was heinous, atrocious and cruel, that he murdered her while committing a felony and that he did it for financial gain.

Park spent much of her arguments outlining the brutal manner in which Loughman was murdered for about $40,000 in jewelry.

“From the time that attack began, Joan Loughman knew she was going to die,” Park said.

Among her injuries, Park said, bones in Loughman’s face were shattered by a blow from an ashtray stand. A stab wound on her back with a piece of broken glass went so deep it punctured her lung. Her teeth were knocked out by their roots from the attack – two were found on the floor, two others lodged in the back of her throat.

So severe were her injuries that her family had a closed casket at her wake. Testimony about the wake from Loughman’s daughter Karen Stillman on Thursday brought so much emotions from jurors that several of them were in tears and they asked to take a break afterwards.

Defense Attorney Mary Celidonio asked jurors to choose a life sentence for Gosciminski, giving them 41 factors to cionsider in mitigation — including his military service in the Air Force, testimony about his ability to adjust well to prison if given a life sentence, and mental illnesses for which he sought treatment.

The jury at the end of deliberations will either return with a recommendation for life or death, but the decision will be ultimately left to Circuit Judge Robert Belanger.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Stuart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.