At a hearing Tuesday afternoon in Durham County Superior Court, District Attorney David Saacks declared the state plans to pursue the death penalty for Thomas Anthony Pitt, who has confessed to murdering former Duke employee Curt Blackman last May.
The defense said the actual court case may not begin for another year and a half.
Since the prosecution is pursuing capital punishment, according to state law, the judge must make sure the defendant is represented by two lawyers at a pretrial hearing. Two attorneys had already been appointed to represent Pitt.
Orlando Hudson, senior resident Superior Court judge, allowed the state to proceed with first-degree murder charges and seek the death penalty, saying he thought there was “at least one aggravating factor.”
An aggravating factor is a circumstance that adds to the seriousness of a crime. Capital aggravators are factors that allow prosecuting attorneys to file capital charges.
Saacks defined the capital aggravator in this case as financial gain from theft—Pitt allegedly stole and pawned a digital camera and a DVD player from Blackman’s apartment—and the particularly “heinous, atrocious and cruel” nature of the murder. According to the autopsy report, Blackman was stabbed 30 times.
Pitt told police that the killing was an act of self-defense, but Saacks will try to prove the murder was in the first-degree.
He said the multiple stab wounds, the “robbery factor” and Blackman’s particularly slow and bloody death were other pieces of evidence that suggest the murder was premeditated.
Tuesday’s hearing came eleven months after the Durham Police Department arrested Pitt, then 22, inside a Wal-Mart located at Oxford Commons. Pitt worked at a nearby Burger King.
Duke University Police officers found Blackman’s body in his Hilton Street apartment May 20 after co-workers reported he had not been to work in two days. Officers discovered Blackman’s body face-down on his bedroom floor, blindfolded and gagged, with his wrists and ankles tied up.
Attorneys from both sides acknowledged Blackman and Pitt knew each other before the murder but did not discuss the nature of their relationship.
Hudson kept the case on “first setting” pending the results of lab reports. While on first setting, plea bargains and bail negotiations are allowed. The case will keep this status until at least the next hearing, which is scheduled for June 6.
Pitt’s court-appointed attorney Mark Edwards said he and his co-counselor are waiting for prosecutors to turn over all the evidence, including crime scene photos.
Blackman served as the coordinator for graduate recruitment and minority programs at Duke. He had hoped to enter graduate school at Northwestern University last fall.
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