RIVERSIDE, Calif. AP – Prosecutors on Tuesday urged jurors to recommend the death penalty for a man convicted of murdering five firefighters by igniting a Southern California wildfire, but his lawyers said he should get life in prison without parole because he didn’t intend to kill anyone.
Riverside County prosecutor Michael Hestrin told jurors in closing arguments of the trial’s penalty phase that Raymond Lee Oyler caused terror in rural communities by setting the fires and horrific pain to the firefighters before they succumbed.
