Death Notice

Panhandle sports fan gets death for killing wife after sex

PANAMA CITY, Fla. A man who said he was angry with his wife because she nagged him to cuddle after sex while he wanted to watch sports on television has been sentenced to death for killing her with a claw hammer.

Christopher Offord, 30 received the sentence Wednesday from Circuit Judge Dedee Costello, who said the brutality of the killing outweighed any mental health issues.

"The defendant struck his wife approximately 70 individual blows after spending a happy interlude with her," Costello said. "Her desire to cuddle after sex does not justify the extremely violent, brutal response of the defendant."

Offord pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the July 31, 2004, death of Dana Noser, 40, at his Panama City apartment.

He initially confessed to a bartender at a sports bar before being arrested. He told investigators, in a taped interview played to the jury, that he got annoyed when he wanted to watch a sports program and Noser continued to ask him to return to bed with her.

Offord did not speak in court Wednesday but in the past has repeatedly said he wanted a death sentence.

"Prison isn't the issue," he said in June during a jailhouse interview with The News Herald of Panama City. "I figured I killed her so I deserve to die."

All death sentences are automatically appealed to the Florida Supreme Court.

A 12-member jury unanimously had recommended death. The only other option was life in prison without parole.

At that June hearing, Offord claimed he had a history of mental illness since he was 6 years old. He also told arresting officers that a voice in his head told him to kill Noser.

At a second sentencing hearing last month, however, he denied having any mental impairment, saying he had fooled doctors all his life. He said he "just lost it" when he killed Noser and had been thinking about murdering her for weeks.

Costello said his main problem probably was substance abuse. She nevertheless considered his history of diagnosed mental disorders but said it was outweighed by the "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" way Noser was killed.

"This was not an instantaneous death and it was obviously extremely painful and unnecessarily brutal," Costello said.

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Information from: The News Herald,

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