Garcia sentenced to die

• By ROY PITCHFORD
• Advocate Westside bureau
• Published: Jun 8, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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PORT ALLEN — Members of a West Baton Rouge Parish jury ordered the death penalty for Michael Garcia on Saturday with the same speedy dispatch they displayed Friday night in finding him guilty of first-degree murder.

District Attorney Ricky Ward of the 18th Judicial District  said he had never seen anything approaching the swiftness with which the jury acted in bringing the state’s capital case against Garcia to a conclusion.

Ward also said this was the first time he has seen a jury hand down a death sentence in his 18 years as top prosecutor in the 18th Judicial District, which has jurisdiction in West Baton Rouge, Iberville and Pointe Coupee parishes.

The 12 jurors deliberated for 26 minutes before unanimously agreeing to the death penalty. On Friday night, they found Garcia guilty of first-degree murder after deliberating 11 minutes.

Garcia was convicted and sentenced to die for the Feb. 8, 2006,  first-degree murder of Matthew Millican in a wooded area near Port Allen, not far from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.

District Judge Robin Free asked Garcia if he wished to waive the 72-hour sentencing delay, and be sentenced immediately, but the defendant refused.

Free scheduled sentencing for 8:30 a.m. on June 17.

After the jury decision was announced, a security crew from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola took Garcia into another room where he quickly changed from the dark blue suit and tie he had been wearing during the trial into an orange prison jumpsuit. They loaded Garcia into a prison van and drove away.

Jurors noted the “aggravating circumstances” of armed robbery and aggravated kidnapping on their verdict form to meet the legal requirement for handing down a death penalty in Louisiana.

Garcia, 29, of Lansing, Mich., showed almost no emotion as the jury’s death verdict was read. Several members of his immediate family, who had come to Louisiana for the end of the trial, listened quietly.

Garcia was arrested with his brother, Daniel Millican, and James Nelson II after Millican and Megan Teresi were robbed and kidnapped when they were awakened from sleep behind a motel on La. 415 in Port Allen. Millican and Teresi were transients who described themselves as “travelers.”

The couple was taken to a wooded area, where Millican was killed and dumped into the waterway  and Teresi was beaten and repeatedly raped.

Lead prosecutor Tony Clayton began Saturday’s penalty phase of the trial by entering evidence from the guilt phase to establish the aggravated circumstances needed for a death penalty.