Bucks County District Attorney David W. Heckler says he’s confident Frank R. Chester will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, even though his death sentence was permanently vacated this week.
In 1987, Chester and Richard R. Laird kidnapped gay artist Anthony V. Milano to a wooded area of Bucks County, where Milano’s throat was hacked out with a boxcutter.
The case became a cause celebre, because Milano was believed to be targeted because of his sexual orientation.
Both men have been on death row for 28 years. But this week, Chester was resentenced to life without parole, after he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Milano’s death.
Chester’s resentencing became necessary after a federal judge voided his first-degree murder conviction, citing faulty jury instructions by the trial judge in 1988.
In an interview with PGN, Heckler said he’s confident the plea deal means Chester will never be a free man. “I think the world is a better place if he’s caged for the rest of his life,” Heckler said.
Bucks County Common Pleas Judge Rea B. Boylan presided over the March 14 court proceeding and accepted Chester’s guilty plea.
Heckler acknowledged that Laird hacked out Milano’s throat, not Chester. Still, he said, Chester should never be paroled.
“There’s always the potential that a particular governor could pardon somebody,” Heckler conceded. “But Mr. Chester and the crime he committed would hardly seem appropriate for any chief executive to exercise the clemency that’s inherent to their powers. The only other way for Mr. Chester to be released would be for the state legislature to abolish life without parole. That seems to me to be particularly unlikely.”
Laird is seeking a third trial, claiming childhood sexual abuse and other mental-health challenges made it impossible for him to form a specific intent to kill Milano.
Heckler vowed to maintain Laird’s death sentence, even if it means holding a third trial.
“For as long as Mr. Laird is alive, we’ll be seeking to put him to death. He should be dead. It’s the proper response of society to what he did. I think that is somewhat less the case where Mr. Chester is concerned.”
As of presstime, Chester, 47, and Laird, 52, remained on death row.
Susan McNaughton, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, said efforts are underway to remove Chester from death row.
“Upon receipt of the order from the court and verification by our records office, records-office staff will make the appropriate records change, and upon authorized notification the inmate will immediately be removed from ‘capital case’ status and be placed in ‘administrative custody’ status,” McNaughton said in an email. “He then will be scheduled to meet with the facility’s program review committee within seven days, where an appropriate housing unit will be recommended. Staff will monitor the inmate to help him experience a successful transition to general population.”
McNaughton described the difference between life on death row and life in the general prison population.
“In general population, inmates have supervised movement throughout the prison, throughout the day — to go to work, jobs, meals, library, medical, etc.,” she said. “Capital-case inmates are locked in their cells 22 hours a day, and all of the items that a general-population inmate goes to (meals, library, counseling, etc.) come to the inmate in the capital-case unit. Also, capital-case inmates require additional security and officer escorts any time they are out of their cells. General-population inmates have visits in the prison’s visiting room. Capital-case inmates have non-contact visits.”