Uncle Admits To Pasco Girl's 1997 Rape And Stabbing Death
Published: Dec 28, 2006
DADE CITY - The hotheaded Gary Cochran - the one who shouted down an attorney in open court last year - was nowhere to be found Wednesday.
Instead, a more subdued version of the 41-year-old appeared in court, admitting that he raped and murdered his niece, 9-year-old Sharra Ferger, in 1997.
Faced with trial next month and the possibility of winding up on death row, Cochran decided to end the legal battle over one of Pasco County's most notorious crimes. Negotiations began in the weeks before Christmas, with the deal crystallizing hours before Wednesday's unannounced hearing.
Prosecutors agreed to drop their pursuit of the death penalty in exchange for Cochran's guilty plea and acceptance of a life sentence. During the hearing, Circuit Judge Linda Babb repeatedly asked Cochran whether he wanted to plead guilty and whether he understood the ramifications of doing so.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, his voice barely audible.
Cochran showed no emotion as Assistant State Attorney Jim Hellickson laid out the state's case.
There was Sharra's mutilated body found in a field near her Blanton home on Oct. 3, 1997. She had been raped, beaten and stabbed 46 times. Six of the stab wounds penetrated her skull, Hellickson said.
There was a bite mark on the girl's back that experts said was consistent with Cochran's dental mold.
Hellickson also reviewed details he said Cochran told family members and fellow inmates about Sharra's death that could have been tough to overcome at trial, including that he had lured Sharra out of her house by telling her he had a birthday card for her.
Cochran also told someone how Sharra had cried after the rape and vowed to tell her mom and dad what had happened, and he even admitted that the bite mark was his, Hellickson said.
The evidence against Cochran persuaded his lawyers that facing a possible death sentence was too great a risk.
"Things weren't looking that good," defense attorney Edward Liebling said.
Lane Lastinger, Cohran's other attorney, said Cochran made the final decision after talking with his family and 21-year-old son, David, this week. Prosecutors consulted with Sharra's father, Jay Parsons, and mother, Karen Patti, before going ahead with the plea.
Parsons, who is Cochran's brother, attended the hearing but left the courthouse without saying anything.
Reached at her home in upstate New York, Patti called Cochran's plea the "best Christmas present I ever got." She said she struggled for years with the question of whether Cochran should receive a life sentence or the death penalty.
"The death penalty would have been too easy for him," she said. "Life in prison without parole sounds good to me. He'll get beat up and everything else in there, and he deserves it."
Cochran is the second man to be convicted in Sharra's slaying. Last year, Gary Steven Cannon was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. The 26-year-old Zephyrhills man was ineligible for the death penalty because he was younger than 18 at the time of the slaying.
Prosecutors convicted Cannon largely on the strength of DNA found on the girl's buttocks and statements he made to inmates while he was in county jail.
For a while, it looked as though investigators might not solve Sharra's killing. They charged the Fergers' then-neighbor, Dale Morris, with the crime in 1997 but dismissed the charge four months later when experts could not agree on the source of the bite mark on Sharra's back.
Cochran and Cannon were indicted in 2001.
Reporter Todd Leskanic can be reached at (352) 521-3156 or tleskanic@tampatrib.com.
