Miss. Death row inmate re-sentenced to life
Published 12:12 am Friday, October 9, 2009
A Louisiana man on Mississippi’s death row has been resentenced to life in prison for murdering his stepson, the stepson’s wife and their 4-year-old daughter in 1993 to cash in on an insurance policy.
Alan Michael Rubenstein, of Marrero, La., was convicted in 2000 of the slayings of Darrell Perry, 24, Perry’s 20-year-old wife Annie and their 4-year-old daughter Krystal, all of Marrero.
Prosecutors said Rubenstein, 61, wanted $250,000 in life insurance so he killed the family at a vacation home in Mississippi in November 1993.
District Attorney Dee Bates told Pike County Judge Mike Taylor he did not want to try the case again in hopes or having the death penalty reinstated. Rubenstein was given the new sentence of three consecutive life terms.
Bates said relatives of the victims declined to attend. Rubenstein also declined to speak at the hearing.
The Mississippi Supreme Court had already tossed out the death penalty, saying the original trial judge failed to properly instruct the jury on sentencing options. The jurors were only told they could sentence Rubenstein to death or a life sentence. They were not told about the option of life without parole, the Supreme Court said.
The bodies of the victims were found in December 1993 at a vacation house owned by Rubenstein north of Summit.
Rubenstein was indicted in 1998, but in 1999 a jury failed to reach a verdict after a 12-day trial. The case was retried in February 2000, and Rubenstein was convicted and sentenced to death.
The Supreme Court upheld Rubenstein’s death sentence in 2005 but reversed it in 2006.