Cash spared death in carjacking, slaying

Convicted murderer Omar Sharif Cash was spared the death penalty this morning when a Bucks County jury failed to agree on the appropriate punishment for the 2008 carjacking and slaying of an immigrant carpenter.

The six-man, six-woman jury pronounced itself hopelessly deadlocked after four and a half hours of deliberations that had begun late Tuesday and continued into Wednesday morning. That means Cash will be given life in prison by default.

The jury last week had convicted Cash, 28, of first-degree murder in the May 11, 2008, execution-style shooting death of Edgar Rosas-Gutierrez along a roadside embankment in Bensalem.

He also was convicted of rape, kidnapping and robbery after kidnapping Rosas-Gutierrez, 32, and his girlfriend outside a Philadelphia nightclub, robbing them, raping the woman repeatedly and shooting Rosas-Gutierrez in the back of the head.

Jury foreman Joe Monaghan of Newtown attributed the impasse to "12 reasonable people" expressing their beliefs. He declined to be specific about the split, saying, "it wasn't a baseball score."

Cash still awaits trial in Philadelphia for an unrelated slaying in April 2008.