DA seeks death-penalty option for another defendant in Valley Center killings

Prosecutors on Thursday filed a court document that would allow them to seek the death penalty against Andrew Ellington if he is convicted of capital murder in the shooting deaths of Valley Center couple Roger and Melissa Bluml.

Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said by e-mail that he had filed a Notice of Intent to Request Separate Sentencing Proceeding following Ellington’s arraignment Thursday morning in Sedgwick County District Court. The document preserves prosecutors’ option to request that Ellington be executed and must be filed within five days of a defendant’s arraignment hearing.

Bennett said in Thursday’s e-mail that he had not yet decided whether to ask for the death penalty against Ellington. In a previous interview, Bennett said he can make the final decision at any point up to jurors reaching a verdict at trial.

The other possible sentence a capital murder conviction carries is life in prison without parole.

Ellington is scheduled for jury trial Dec. 15, although the proceeding could be postponed. The court has entered a not-guilty plea to the charges on Ellington’s behalf, Bennett said.

Ellington, 19, is one of four people charged with capital murder, aggravated robbery, burglary and theft in the Nov. 15, 2013, shootings of the Blumls as they sat in a car outside their rural Valley Center home.

Melissa Bluml, 53, died at a Wichita hospital the following day. Her husband, Roger, died from his injuries about five weeks later. He was 48.

The couple are the adoptive parents of 19-year-old Anthony Bluml, with whom Ellington is friends. Anthony Bluml, his biological mother, 36-year-old Kisha Schaberg, and another friend, 19-year-old Braden Smith, also are implicated in the slayings.

At a hearing in July, Smith testified that the couple were killed over life insurance money and resentment. He also testified that Schaberg pulled the trigger.

If convicted of capital murder, Schaberg and Bluml also could face the death penalty. Smith, however, is expected to receive a lighter sentence. This summer he struck a plea deal with prosecutors that would reduce his capital murder charge to two counts of second-degree murder in exchange for his testimony against the other three defendants.

Prosecutors plan to ask a judge to sentence Smith to 24.5 years in prison. The judge, however, does not have to adhere to the terms of the plea agreement.

This story was originally published November 20, 2014 at 8:41 PM with the headline "DA seeks death-penalty option for another defendant in Valley Center killings."