Jury Shows No Sympathy for Murderer

Laquaille Bryant was sentenced to death for the murders of two woman.

A jury sentenced Laquaille Bryant to death by injection for the January 2008 murders of 23-year-old Chante Wright and her friend Octavia Green in the Grays Ferry section of the city.

The sentence was handed down by a jury on Wednesday, just two days after defense witness Beth Cahill, a New York-based investigator, testified that Bryant was born into a life of violence, crime and drugs. A conclusion stemming from hours of interviewing both the defendant and his relatives, according to the Philadelphia Daily News.

His mother was 14 at the time of his birth and suffered from mental problems as well as an addition to crack. Bryant’s 18-year-old father was a drug dealer.

Growing up in his grandmother’s house, Bryant was subject to living with an aunt and uncle who would hock Christmas gifts to pay for their drug habit, reports the paper.

Cahill believes that his home life, coupled with his addiction to “wet” played a major role his decision to murder Wright and Green.

Chante Wright was a participant in the federal witness protection program. The mother of one was relocated to Jacksonville, Fl. after agreeing to testify against Hakeem Bey, an alleged gang member and alleged killer, according to 6abc.com.

Wright, who had broken the witness program’s rules and returned to the area to visit her dying grandmother, was gunned by Bryant down seven hours after arriving in Philly, reports ABC

Laquaille Bryant confessed to the murders of Wright and her friend in 2008.

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