Death-row inmate from Independence who killed 2 women dies of COVID-19, group says
A Missouri inmate from Independence who was sentenced to death after videotaping the sexual torture of two women before killing them in 2006 died Tuesday, a prison official said.
Richard “Ricky” Davis, 56, had been imprisoned at the Potosi Correctional Center in eastern Missouri. He was sentenced to die in 2008, the first death sentence handed down in Jackson County at the time since 1999.
Karen Pojmann, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said she could not release Davis’ cause of death or other confidential medical information. Davis was hospitalized for about two weeks before his death, she said.
In a news release, Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty said Davis died of COVID-19 after spending 16 days on a ventilator, which his lawyers confirmed.
Davis was convicted of murder in the death of 41-year-old Marsha Spicer. Davis and his then-girlfriend, Dena Riley, later pleaded guilty to murder and other charges linked to the killing of 36-year-old Michelle Huff-Ricci.
The two were once known as the FBI’s most-wanted couple.
Spicer’s nude body was found in May 2006 by a fisherman in a shallow Lafayette County grave. Authorities found Huff-Ricci’s burned body the same month in a wooded area near Missouri 210 and Missouri 291 in rural Clay County.
At the couple’s Independence apartment, authorities found videos depicting the torture and rapes of both victims.
The suspects fled before authorities could arrest them, sparking an eight-day manhunt during which the couple kidnapped and sexually assaulted a 5-year-old girl from Arcadia, Kansas, The Star previously reported.
During the penalty phase of Davis’ trial, jurors learned he had served prison time for raping a woman in 1987 in Independence. They also heard that Davis himself had been the victim of repeated sexual assaults.
Elyse Max, executive director of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said Davis struggled with mental illness and had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
“Of the now 20 men on death row in Missouri, COVID-19 should not be their death sentence,” wrote her organization, which called Davis a “good friend” to those who knew him.
In a statement Friday, Davis’ lawyers said an investigation found he was sexually victimized as a child, including by an alcoholic stepfather who died by suicide on the eve of his trial. He was also brutalized by prisoners as a young man in state custody, they said.
Had Davis not died, his attorneys at Phillips Black said, that and other evidence not heard by the jury that sentenced him to die would have been central to his claims before a federal appellate court.
Davis spent his life in prison “filled with remorse for the harm and pain he had inflicted,” according to the statement sent by one of his attorneys, Joseph Perkovich.
“He worked daily to understand the tragic events for which he was responsible,” it said.
Davis’ then-girlfriend, Riley, is now serving multiple life sentences.
As of Thursday, 36 state prisoners and four staff members have died of COVID-19, according to the Department of Corrections. In total, more than 4,200 inmates across the state have recovered from the virus while 500 are considered “active” infections.
At Potosi, where Davis was imprisoned, 114 inmates have recovered from the virus while 26 are infected. More than 100 staffers there have recovered from the virus while 14 are active cases.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 5:18 PM.
