A Denver Judge sentenced Dexter Lewis to five life sentences and an additional 180 years for the aggravated robbery, five first-degree murders, and arson at Fero’s Bar and Grill in Denver in October 2012. Lewis was being tried with the possibility of a death sentence.
Lewis’s defense cited neglect, abuse, and violence in his childhood and upbringing and argued that they had a long-term effect on Lewis’s emotional and mental well-being. Two expert witnesses that specialize in the effects of childhood trauma, Dr. Bruce Perry and Dr. Mark Cunningham, shared their findings and expert testimony in the case.
Dr. Perry, who helped found the Child Trauma Academy in Houston, focused on the long-term effect that abuse from a parent has on the brain development in children.
“The earlier in life, the more malleable the brain is,” Perry said. “Childhood trauma impairs the development of executive functioning. With that impairment, children can grow up lacking impulse control and the ability to regulate emotions in stressful situations.”
Dr. Cunningham’s expert testimony included the study of “thousands of pages of documents about Lewis’s life. He created a 552-page slide show about the effects of trans-generational violence and the impact of the emotional and physical abuse suffered by Lewis as a child.”
However, Denver Judge John Madden IV put the case on hold to decide if Dr. Cunningham’s expert testimony was admissible to the jury. Ultimately, Dr. Cunningham was permitted to show 150 slides about the general long-term effects of chronic abuse and neglect on children. This gave weight to the numerous witnesses who testified that Lewis suffered from abuse during his upbringing, as the defense argued that Lewis’s childhood lessened his moral culpability when he committed the crime.
The jury ultimately decided that the mitigating factors suggesting leniency for the death sentence, such as abuse in Lewis’s development, outweighed the aggravating factors, which made the murders so horrific and the first death penalty case in Denver since 2001. In addition to this life sentence, Lewis will not receive the possibility of parole.