WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - A Mississippi man will spend the rest of his life in prison for a 1987 cold-case murder in Florida.
Local news outlets report that only nine of 12 jurors voted for the death penalty Tuesday for 50-year-old Rodney Clark. Under Florida’s new death penalty law, jurors must vote unanimously for execution. Otherwise, it’s an automatic life sentence.
Clark was convicted last month of first-degree murder.
Authorities say 27-year-old Dana Fader was raped and strangled in the back seat of her car in Lake Worth in June 1987. Clark was arrested in 2012 after a national DNA database flagged him as a match for semen found on Fader’s dress.
Clark acknowledged being in Palm Beach County at the time of the murder but denied responsibility for Fader’s death.
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