Later, outside the courthouse, she said Thompson has a learning disability and reads at the third- or fourth-grade level, and that, after Ensor announced the sentence and the courtroom had cleared, Thompson had asked, "What did I get?"
Thompson is a young man who is "not clear on a lot of things," Mead said, but he recognized that there would be "a heavy penalty for taking the life of someone."
The defendant's mother, Tynesia Dean, and his father, Danny E. Thompson Sr., testified on his behalf, both apologizing profusely to the victim's family.
The victim's widow, Claudia Sales, brought her baby - now 11 months old and named Carlos, after his father - to court. Silent for the most part, he began to bawl the moment his mother took the stand and was taken out to a hallway, his cries echoing against the walls.
Sales, also in tears, directed her remarks to Thompson. "You had the chance to take the money, if that's what you wanted," she said. "The money is not important. Money can be made again. But you took the life of my son's father. You denied my son the chance to grow up by his father's side."
Sales, speaking in Spanish, her remarks translated by an interpreter, told Thompson that she and her husband had been "very happy waiting for arrival of the baby." She said later the family is planning a first-birthday party May 16 at the Overhills Mansion in Catonsville that will also serve as a fundraiser for the boy.
"Never in my mind," she said, "did I imagine that our world, our savings, all our hopes would come crashing down from one day to the next."
