USA - Alabama. A jury recommended that Dontae Callen, 20, Black, should die

A Jefferson County jury recommended 11-1 that Dontae Callen, 20, Black, should die by lethal injection. The same jury convicted Callen in the Oct. 29, 2010, stabbing deaths of his aunt, Bernice Kelly, 59; and his cousins Quortes Kelly, 33; and Aaliyah Budgess, 12, and then setting fire to the apartment. A mental health expert who testified for the defense said that after several evaluations, he determined Callen had low intellectual functioning and suffered dissociative episodes and post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from fear of abandonment instilled as a child. Beatrice Brown, Bernice's sister and Callen's grandmother, testified about her grandson's unstable life, calling him a "lost child" who bounced from home to home after his mother decided she didn't want to raise him and his siblings. Circuit Judge Laura Petro will consider the jury's recommendation when she decides Callen's official punishment at an Aug. 20 hearing.