May 25, 2016 3 min read

PITTSBURGH – A jury weighing whether a Pennsylvania man deserves the death penalty or life in prison for killing his next-door neighbors, two sisters of an Iowa state lawmaker, was asked to weigh the difference between boulders and bubbles.

That’s how Allegheny County Deputy District Attorney Robert Schupansky likened the two kinds of evidence presented in the death penalty phase of Allen Wade’s murder trial.

“We are weighing bubbles and boulders,” Schupansky told the jury of seven women and five men Wednesday, referring to defense and prosecution evidence, respectively. “If you do have to weigh anything, it’s not even close.”

Under Pennsylvania law, the jury must determine whether prosecutors proved one or more aggravating circumstances existed when Wade, 45, fatally shot Sarah Wolfe, 38, and her sister Susan Wolfe, 44, in the head while robbing their home Feb. 6, 2014. Prosecutors contend Wade did that as the sisters returned home separately from their jobs that night, apparently so he could steal a bank card Wade used hours later to withdraw $600 he needed for rent.

Prosecutors presented evidence of five aggravating circumstances, including some the jury must have already accepted in arriving at their earlier first-degree murder verdicts: that there was more than one killing, that the killings occurred during a robbery or other felony and that Wade had a criminal record including two armed robberies in 2002, one a bank, the other a shoe store.

Defense attorney Lisa Phillips argued that testimony by Wade’s family should count for something and be weighed fairly.

Among other things, witnesses testified Wade had an absentee father and a close relationship with a grandmother who died in 2000. Despite those alleged hardships, Wade was a dutiful father and grandfather, even when corresponding from prison, and suffered from depression and a head injury in the weeks leading up to the killings.

“It’s up to you as individuals to decide what weight to give it,” Phillips said. “No law says whether it’s a boulder or a bubble.”

Schupansky had argued that the mitigating factors don’t outweigh the aggravating circumstances.

If the jury unanimously agrees that’s true, they must sentence Wade to death; if even one juror disagrees, Wade will receive life in prison without parole.

The women were sisters of Democratic Iowa state Rep. Mary Wolfe. She did not testify and it was unclear whether she planned to make a statement once the penalty verdict was announced. The judge had forbidden attorneys and witnesses to speak about the case until after the sentencing verdict.

The same jury deliberated roughly 12 hours over three days before convicting Wade Monday.