Spare convicted murderer's life, mother and brother urge Philadelphia jury

Robert McDowell's mother and younger brother took the stand Monday in a last attempt to persuade a Common Pleas Court jury not to sentence him to death for his role in a racially tinged 2007 double murder in Tacony.

"Are you asking this jury to spare his life?" defense attorney Gary Server asked Theresa Merlo.

"Yes," Merlo struggled to reply. "I am."

She was the final defense witness on the fifth day of the penalty hearing for McDowell, 28, and Gerald Drummond, 26.

The jury found both Tacony men guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of Damien Holloway, 27, and Timmy Clark, 15, each shot in the head execution-style in the 6900 block of Vandike Street on July 13, 2007.

Trial witnesses said Drummond, the convicted triggerman, had a grudge against Holloway because of race - Drummond and McDowell are white, Holloway was black - and because Holloway had separated from Drummond's sister, with whom he had a disabled child. Clark, who was white, was killed because he was there, witnesses testified.

The jury is to return to the Criminal Justice Center on Tuesday to hear closing arguments by Assistant District Attorney Carlos Vega; Drummond's lawyer, William L. Bowe; and Server.

Late Tuesday or Wednesday, the jury will be instructed by Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes on the state's death-penalty law and begin deciding between execution by lethal injection or life in prison without parole for the men.

Merlo remarried after divorcing McDowell's father, Robert Sr, now deceased. She spent almost 50 minutes recounting her often-violent life with McDowell Sr. and Thomas Merlo. Both men, she said, beat her and abused her children - three with McDowell, two with Merlo.

She said her domestic problems caused her to become so withdrawn that she often neglected her children and turned a blind eye as they became truants, got in trouble with the law, and turned to illegal drugs.

"I enabled him," Merlo said of Robert Jr.'s growing heroin addiction. "I enabled him until I couldn't take it no more."

Merlo said she turned Robert Jr. out of the house several times, beginning when he was 13.

Despite her son's increasingly troubled life, Merlo acknowledged she never sought counseling or mental-health treatment for him. She said she also never told authorities about the abuse she and her children experienced.

"Why not?" Server asked her several times.

Each time, Merlo replied with a sigh, "I don't know."

Both she and her younger son, Michael McDowell, 26, described Robert Jr. as a caring person who loved his two children and who showed his family none of the violence cited by the prosecutor.

Mother and son also testified that they had nothing against the two victims and said both had good reputations in the neighborhood.

According to prosecution witnesses, the twin shootings occurred about 2:20 a.m. when Drummond and McDowell accosted Holloway and Clark as they walked to Clark's home from a convenience store. Clark worked in Holloway's lawn-cutting business, and Holloway was living with Clark's family.

The prosecution said Drummond ordered Holloway and Clark to kneel, hands behind their heads, and told McDowell to shoot them. When McDowell said he could not do it, Drummond took the revolver and shot each in the head.

A gun was never found, and no blood evidence or DNA incriminated the men. Instead, the prosecution brought in friends and associates who said the pair had described the shootings in detail.