Benjamin A. Sifrit, who was convicted of participating in the murder of a Fairfax City couple in Ocean City last year, was sentenced yesterday to 38 years in prison by a Montgomery County judge who called him "a butcher" and criticized the jury that acquitted him of one of the killings.
Circuit Court Judge Paul H. Weinstein said he had no doubt that Sifrit and his wife, Erika, both killed Martha M. Crutchley, 51, and her companion, Joshua E. Ford, 32, for kicks after meeting them by chance over the Memorial Day weekend.
The victims' bodies were cut up and tossed in the garbage, and only partial remains were recovered. Police arrested the Sifrits, both 25, five days after the killings as they looted a Hooters restaurant. Both were armed, and Erika Sifrit's purse contained items belonging to the victims. She also was carrying a handgun linked to Ford's death.
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After deliberating almost 14 hours over two days in April, a Montgomery jury found Benjamin Sifrit guilty of second-degree murder of Crutchley but cleared him of all charges in Ford's death. They also found him guilty of being an accessory to murder after the fact for dismembering the bodies and throwing them in the trash -- a crime Sifrit admitted to while testifying at his trial.
Last month, Erika Sifrit, 25, was found guilty of first-degree murder of Ford and second-degree murder of Crutchley by a Frederick County jury that deliberated four hours. Her sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 14. Both trials were moved from the Eastern Shore because of publicity.
"This was nothing more than a thrill killing that you and your wife committed," Weinstein told Benjamin Sifrit.
"And I don't want you to sit there for one minute and think that your wife did this by herself. Because I don't."
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Sifrit did not make a statement and showed no reaction as Weinstein compared the cold-blooded killings to the Nazi depravity of the Holocaust.
"You're a butcher. You cut these people up for no good reason. You murdered these people for no good reason," he said.
Noting that Sifrit could be eligible for parole after serving about half his prison sentence, Weinstein said he put a notation in the file asking officials to notify him, if he is still alive, when Sifrit comes up for parole so that he could oppose it.
Gina Kramer of Colorado read a letter in court that she addressed to Crutchley, her stepmother, talking about their visits, the flowers Crutchley loved and Kramer's regret that the blossoming relationship between Crutchley and Kramer's daughter was cut short.
Crutchley's sister, Anita Flickinger of Phoenix, said she and Crutchley will "never be the funny old ladies we promised ourselves we'd be." She also told how her sister's horrible death caused her mother to be hospitalized. And yet, Flickinger said she struggled to be as forgiving to the killers as her mother was.
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Weinstein sentenced Sifrit to 30 years for second-degree murder and first-degree assault and five years for serving as an accessory after the fact.
Sifrit also pleaded guilty yesterday to second-degree burglary for breaking into a Hooters restaurant in Ocean City five days after the killing and carrying a handgun during the break-in. Weinstein sentenced him to three years in prison for the burglary and ordered that the sentence run consecutively to the other charges.
William Brennan, one of Sifrit's attorneys, said the sentence was fair.
Worcester County State's Attorney Joel Todd characterized Sifrit as "a wicked, evil, reprehensible human being."
He wanted the judge to consider a picture of Sifrit with a huge swastika tattoo on his chest as a sign of the defendant's "evil mind."
Weinstein did not admit the photograph as evidence for the hearing.
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"I don't know what possessed you to do what you did, and I don't know what possessed your wife to do what she did," Weinstein said to Sifrit.
"I do know that if it wasn't for the masterful job your lawyers did in this case, you would probably be facing a life sentence. But the jury has spoken, and I am bound by what the jury has said in this case. It's one of the few instances in 20 years that I disagree with the jury's verdict."
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