By Janice Morse
The Cincinnati Enquirer

HAMILTON - After deliberating nearly 12 hours, a Butler County jury early Wednesday recommended that a convicted killer receive life without parole for a double homicide.

Jason Sam Campbell, convicted in a double homicide, asked the jury Tuesday to spare his life and forgive him for his crimes.

"I can't imagine the sadness and the tremendous anger the family of the victims must feel toward me for what I did - and causing them these feelings makes me sick in the deepest recesses of my soul," he said in an unsworn statement. Asking the jury to forgive him would be a lot to ask, he said, because "I am unable to forgive myself and I probably never will."

Campbell, 22, who has lived in Hamilton and Middletown, was convicted of killing Helen Riley, 55, and her husband, Donald, 44, in their Hamilton home on Feb. 23, 2003, hours after he had escaped from a low-security Warren County corrections center. His attorneys did not dispute that Campbell had committed the slayings, but said his abusive childhood, starting with rape and physical abuse in infancy, could have contributed to Campbell's fits of uncontrollable rage. Campbell told police he became angry and killed the couple after the Rileys told him they had no money to give him.

He looked toward the family of his victims and apologized and said, "I also want to apologize to the community at large." He ended his statement by reading a poem about the execution scene that might happen if the jury recommends that he be sentenced to death. The poem ends with: "I probably won't be remembered for anything I've said, but if I am, let it be that 'I'm sorry for what I did.' "

Common Pleas Judge Michael J. Sage sequestered the jury under police guard until jurors decided whether to recommend death or a life sentence for Campbell.