Deliberations begin in rape-murder trial

Omar Sharif Cash senselessly executed a man and repeatedly raped the victim's girlfriend in acts so horrific that words can't describe them, a prosecutor told a Bucks County jury in his closing argument yesterday.

A defense attorney, however, told jurors that there was no physical evidence linking Cash, 28, of Philadelphia, to any crime.

The panel of six women and six men deliberated for nearly four hours yesterday at Cash's trial on homicide and rape charges without reaching a verdict. They will resume today.

If Cash is convicted of first-degree murder, the jury will decide between a sentence of life in prison or the death penalty.

On Tuesday, Cash took the stand and gave his version of what happened during the early- morning hours of May 11, 2008.

He said he had met a man outside Jalapeño Joe's nightclub on Castor Avenue near Wyoming in Crescentville. He said that he was looking for a prostitute and that the man said he could hook him up with one, but they would have to meet her at a Comfort Inn in Lawrenceville, N.J.

Cash said he took a cab, paying $75, to get to the hotel. There, he testified, the woman - whom authorities say is the rape victim - had consensual sex with him.

Cash said he then realized that she had robbed him, and so, as she was running out of the hotel, he ran after her.

Bucks County Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc Furber told jurors yesterday that Cash's "story lacks common sense to the nth degree."

The woman, a Brazilian immigrant, 43, who had been in this country illegally, tearfully testified Friday that Cash had kidnapped her and her boyfriend, Edgar Rosas-Gutierrez, from their car in the back of Jalapeño Joe's about 3:30 that morning.

Speaking in Portuguese, she told the jury through a translator that Cash had sneaked into the back seat of the car, put a gun to her boyfriend's head and forced him to drive.

The woman said Cash ordered her to perform oral sex on him and raped her in the back seat of the car.

Cash forced her boyfriend to stop on a ramp from Route 1 onto Street Road in Bensalem, she said. There, Cash dragged her boyfriend out of the car into the nearby wooded area and then she heard a shot, she testified.

Authorities contend that Cash killed Rosas-Gutierrez, 32, execution-style with a blast to the back of his head.

The woman - who now has a work permit to live here legally - testified that Cash raped her twice more, on the hood of the car in a parking lot and then at the Comfort Inn.

Defense attorney Charles Jonas told jurors in his closing argument that Cash's testimony, which did not include anything about Rosas-Gutierrez, was true and that the woman made up her story.

Jurors yesterday appeared to be considering Cash's version of events. They asked several questions that seemed to question whether Cash had been in the car with the couple, whether the woman had a good look at the alleged kidnapper, and whether Cash had registered at the Comfort Inn under a forged name, as prosecutors say.