Prosecutor seeking death penalty in 1999 killing

LOCK HAVEN, PENNSYLVANIA - A prosecutor announced he would seek the death penalty against a former college football player from Georgia charged in a 1999 beating death. <br> <br> Clinton County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney Ted McKnight filed a notice of aggravating circumstances in the county&#39;s Court of Common Pleas Tuesday, claiming that Fabian Desmond Smart committed the killing while committing another felony -- kidnapping -- and that the slaying was related to the drug trade. <br> <br> The 24-year-old Smart is from Clyo, Georgia. <br> <br> Smart is charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in the January 1999 beating death of 21-year-old Jason McMann. Smart was a student at Lock Haven University and a free safety on the football team at the time. <br> <br> McKnight wouldn&#39;t say how the murder was related to drugs, but said his office planned to introduce evidence before trial to back the claim. <br> <br> Smart&#39;s attorney, Ronald Pressley, of Philadelphia, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment. <br> <br> Prosecutors are basing their case partly on the testimony of a man who said he was present for the beating. <br> <br> Twenty-four-year-old Willie Marvin Williams Junior of Philadelphia testified last month that Smart and McMann got into a fight at a party and that McMann was knocked unconscious. Williams said McMann was later put into the trunk of Smart&#39;s car and Smart and Williams drove to a secluded area in Logan Township, about 20 miles south of Lock Haven. <br> <br> Williams said Smart first tried to shoot McMann, but the gun wouldn&#39;t fire. Smart then hit McMann several times in the head with the gun, beat him with a tree branch and left him to die from severe head trauma and hypothermia, according to Williams and authorities. <br> <br> McMann&#39;s body wasn&#39;t found for almost three months. <br> <br> Prosecutors said they have reached a tentative plea agreement with Williams in exchange for his testimony and have cut similar deals with two men who allegedly helped load McMann&#39;s body into the car.

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