Commonwealth v. Spell

OPINION

Justice EAKIN.

This is a direct appeal from a death sentence imposed after a jury convicted appellant of first degree murder and abuse of a corpse. 1 We affirm the first degree murder conviction, but vacate appellant’s sentence of death and remand to the trial court for imposition of a life sentence.

In the early morning hours of March 1, 2007, a custodian at the Lawrence County Career and Technical Center noticed a van traveling slowly through the school’s parking lot. Later that morning, a teacher at the Center found a nude body lying sideways in the parking lot, and called the police.…