Man sentenced to death for Long Beach rape-murder

Friday January 24, 2003

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) A judge sentenced a man to die for raping a woman with a wooden stake before beating her to death.

Superior Court Judge John D. Lord on Thursday sentenced Warren Hardy, 26, to death for the killing of Penny Keprta, 43, in December 1998. The woman was walking along a road when Hardy and two other men attacked her.

``She was raped, tortured, beaten so severely that a part of her ear was torn almost completely off,'' the judge said.

Keprta was sodomized with a stake from a freeway construction barrier and the bones in her face were broken in the subsequent beating.

Teddy Keprta, the victim's 19-year-old son, said the sentencing ``gives me some (comfort), but not much.''

Hardy was arrested along with Kevin Pearson, 25, and Jamelle Armstrong, 22. Hardy was convicted last month of murder during the commission of torture, robbery, kidnapping and rape. The jury recommended the death penalty.

Armstrong and Pearson are scheduled to be tried separately for the same crimes. Armstrong is due back in court on March 2 and Pearson on Feb. 26.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)