Frank R. Chester, convicted of the grisly slaying of gay artist Anthony Milano, is scheduled to be released from death row later this month.
Chester has been on death row for 28 years, making him one of the longest-serving death-row inmates in the state.
In a deal announced Feb 29, Chester will plead guilty to first-degree murder for his role in Milano’s death in exchange for a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
Chester and Richard R. Laird were sentenced to death in July 1988, after kidnapping Milano to a wooded area in Bucks County and hacking out his throat.
But federal judges overturned their first-degree murder convictions, citing faulty jury instructions by the trial judge on accomplice liability.
Rather than attempting to reinstate Chester’s first-degree murder conviction by retrying him, prosecutors agreed to have him released from Graterford Prison’s death row to the general prison population.
In return, Chester will plead guilty to first-degree murder for his role in Milano’s death, and he’ll remain incarcerated for the remainder of his natural life.
Currently, Chester is confined to a small cell for up to 23 hours daily, with limited human contact or interaction. But to a large extent, those constraints will be lifted when Chester enters the general prison population.
The Milano case became a cause celebre in the local LGBT community because Milano was believed to be targeted due to his sexual orientation.
Stephen B. Harris, chief of appeals for the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office, said avoiding another trial for Chester was the best option, considering the circumstances of the case.
“We thought it was the proper outcome,” Harris told PGN. “We talked to the remaining family members. We talked to the police officers involved. We would not have done this had we not spoken to everybody.”
The feedback convinced prosecutors to resolve the matter without another trial for Chester, he said.
“The consensus was that, at this point, accepting a plea to first-degree murder in exchange for a sentence of life imprisonment without a chance for parole was the proper way to bring this matter to a final conclusion,” Harris added.
Harris noted that surviving relatives of Milano will be spared the trauma of another trial.
“They [relatives] won’t have to relive this. But we looked at the entire situation, the expense [of another trial], the ultimate result. We just concluded — and those involved agreed — that this was the appropriate disposition.”
Harris said another trial for Chester wouldn’t necessarily have reinstated his first-degree murder conviction.
“I have tried lots of cases,” he said. “You never know what the outcome will be. The outcome isn’t certain in any case. But we also felt very strongly that Chester was guilty of first-degree murder. We believe he’s prepared to admit his guilt.”
In the past, Chester blamed Milano’s murder on Laird, who’s also seeking to be released from death row.
Chester is scheduled to formally enter his plea before Common Pleas Judge Rea B. Boylan at 9:30 a.m. March 14 in Courtroom 450 of the Bucks County Court House in Doylestown.
Attorneys for Chester couldn’t be reached for comment.
Laird’s request to be released from death row remains pending with U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois.
Laird admits stabbing Milano to death. But he claims extreme sexual abuse at the hands of his father, along with other mental-health challenges, prevented him from forming a specific intent to kill Milano.
Chester, 47, tried to get his other convictions in the Milano case overturned, including second-degree murder and kidnapping. But those efforts were rejected last year by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
In February 2015, Gov. Wolf imposed a moratorium on capital punishment in Pennsylvania, which remains in effect indefinitely.
The last person to be executed in Pennsylvania was Gary M. Heidnik, who received a lethal injection in July 1999, after torturing and murdering two women in Philadelphia.