Jury To Decide Life or Death for Convicted Murderer

The Essex man convicted last week of murdering a Towson gas station owner apologized to the victim’s relatives in a Harford County courtroom Tuesday before the jury began deliberating his sentence: life in prison or death.

Walter Bishop was of first degree murder for the March 1, 2010 shooting death of William R. “Ray” Porter, owner of a Hess gas station on East Joppa Road. Bishop was paid $9,000 to be the gunman in a murder-for-hire scheme that prosecutors say was initiated by Porter's wife, Karla. Her trial is scheduled for next year and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for her, too.

Bishop's trial is the first under Maryland's new death penalty statute, which went into effect in 2009. The new law requires conclusive evidence, such as DNA, surveillance footage of the crime or a voluntary, videotaped confession for prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

The case was moved out of Baltimore County at the defense's request.

Last week,that investigators obtained a voluntary confession from Bishop, who told investigators five days after the shooting that he fired the bullet that killed William Porter.

Bishop, 29, made remarks before the jury left to deliberate at 2:45 p.m. in in Bel Air. He stood and turned toward Porter's family members.

"Every morning when I wake up, I relive the events of March the first. It haunts me when I'm asleep. It haunts me when I'm awake," he said, pausing and crying. "I just want you to know that not a day will go by when I will not relive this, will not regret this."

In the last day of the sentencing phase, Bishop's defense attorneys called his parents to testify. Bishop's father, Walter Bishop Sr., said he was a less-than-ideal father who struggled with alcoholism. He said he felt partially responsible for his son's actions.

In closing statements, public defender Stefanie McArdle displayed a diagram of mitigating circumstances for the jury to consider, including Bishop's clean criminal record, voluntary confession and troubled upbringing. She asked that the jury be merciful.

"If you have ever stood up for anything, stand up against the death penalty here," McArdle told the jury.

Baltimore County Assistant State's Attorney John Cox said in closing arguments that Bishop's upbringing was not as bad as portrayed and was not a mitigating factor in his sentence. Cox also attacked the defense's assertion that Bishop has been a model prisoner, citing incidents where he refused orders from corrections officers and one June incident where officers found a razor blade hidden in a potato chip bag in Bishop's cell.

Bishop's actions were the "sole and proximate cause" of Porter's death, a key part of determining a death sentence, Cox said.

"You know that he was on his own, holding a gun," Cox said, referring to surveillance footage of Bishop in the area hours before the crime. "He was the man who had the ability to make the decision [of] 'whether I take this life.'

"He chooses to take [Porter's] life," Cox told the jury. "Isn't that the person who should have showed mercy?"