<p>The attorney for a convicted murderer asked a jury Friday to spare him from the death penalty despite his horrific crime _ forcing two Cobb County real estate agents to strip naked and give him their bank cards before shooting both women in the head.</p><p>"These crimes are beyond redemption, but a man is not beyond redemption," defense lawyer Jimmy Berry told jurors in closing arguments of the trial's sentencing phase. "This is a test of our humanity."</p><p>The jury convicted Stacey Ian Humphreys on Tuesday of malice murder in the slayings of 33-year-old Cyndi Williams and 21-year-old Lori Brown. Their naked bodies were found Nov. 3, 2003, on the floor of their sales office in suburban Powder Springs north of Atlanta.</p><p>Now the jury of 10 women and two men must decide whether to sentence Humphreys to life in prison or death by lethal injection.</p><p>Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head told jurors Friday that Humphreys deserved the death penalty for killing the women just so he could steal money for a $565 truck payment.</p><p>"He's the one who, by his own hand, took innocent blood," Head said. "He is an executioner. All people who commit murder believe in the death penalty _ at least for everybody but them."</p><p>Superior Court Judge Dorothy Robinson moved Humphreys' trial more than 300 miles from Cobb County to coastal Brunswick because of pretrial publicity.</p><p>Berry urged the jury to consider testimony that Humphreys suffers mental disorders as the result of an abusive childhood _ not as excuses for his crime, but as factors showing he deserves mercy.</p><p>Humphreys' younger sister, Dayna Knowles, testified Friday that she and her brother were abused by their father. While their father would whip her with a belt or stick when they got into trouble, Knowles said, he would beat Humphreys with his fists.</p><p>"I know it's hard for a lot of people to understand, but I feel like my brother and I have survived through sort of a battle and we made it to the other side," Knowles said through tears. "He's like my connection to what was real in my life, as horrible as it was."</p><p>Knowles also told the jury: "I will always love my brother, and he completely loves me. He has a good heart."</p><p>Humphreys, 34, did not testify. He told the judge outside the jury's presence that he was satisfied with his defense.</p><p>Dr. Robert Shaffer, a clinical psychologist, testified that he believes Humphreys shows symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder as well as Asperger's syndrome, often likened to autism. Some of those disorders, he said, are often linked to physical abuse.</p><p>Shaffer said his review of Humphreys' family and medical history showed he suffered cigarette burns on his body as a child as well as a skull fracture when he was 3 years old.</p><p>"There were instances of physical battery of Stacey Humphreys where his father would sit on him and batter his head which, interestingly, Stacey Humphreys seems to have no memory of," Shaffer said.</p><p>He said Humphreys can't seem to recall his abuse _ just as Humphreys told police after his 2003 arrest in Wisconsin that he did not remember killing Williams and Brown, though he suspected he was guilty.</p><p>"He exhibits this kind of denial to avoid re-experiencing the problems and horrors of his life," Shaffer said.</p><p>Humphreys was on parole for a 1993 theft conviction when Williams and Brown were killed. He had been released from prison 13 months earlier.</p><p>Humphreys became a suspect after witnesses told police they had seen a man fitting his description at the sales office, as well as a vehicle in the parking lot that matched his black Dodge Durango.</p><p>Humphreys fled when police tried to question him at his Dunwoody home days later. He was arrested in Wisconsin after a high-speed chase with police.</p><p>In the console of the rented Jeep that Humphreys used to flee, police found a Ruger handgun that matched the 9 mm bullets that killed the women. Investigators found blood on the gun that matched Williams' DNA, and blood in his truck matching the DNA of Brown.</p>
