In Cook County the stepfather of a 22-year-old disabled...

In Cook County the stepfather of a 22-year-old disabled woman was sentenced to death by Criminal Court Judge Colleen McSweeney Moore in the woman's beating and starvation death.
John Hester, 49, of Chicago, who a defense expert testified has an IQ of 73--three points above the clinical definition of mental retardation--was found guilty of murdering Orachanee Anderson, in a June bench trial.
His wife, Peggy Anderson, also is accused of murder in the Jan. 15, 1998, killing but has not yet been tried.
The judge cited evidence that she was blind and unable to speak at the time of her death and likely unable to walk. The young woman had evidence of at least 177 injuries on her body--some new, some infected, some months or years old--and died of malnutrition and blunt trauma.