Convicted murderer Alan Michael Rubenstein will leave the solitude of his death row cell and enter the maximum security population in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman after being resentenced Monday in Pike County Circuit Court.
Following a ruling of the Mississippi Supreme Court, Judge Mike Taylor changed Rubenstein’s capital murder sentence from death to life without parole, to run consecutively to two other consecutive life sentences.
In 2000, Rubenstein, of Marrero, La., was found guilty of capital murder and two counts of murder for the November 1993 stabbing of his stepson Darrell Perry, 24, Perry’s 20-year-old wife Annie and their 4-year-old daughter Krystal, all of Marrero, in order to collect on a $250,000 life insurance policy.
The bodies of the victims were found in December 1993 at a vacation house owned by Rubenstein on Johnston Station Road 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.
The Supreme Court upheld Rubenstein’s death sentence in 2005 but reversed it in 2006, saying then-Circuit Court Judge Keith Starrett told jurors they could sentence Rubenstein to death or to life in prison for capital murder but omitted the option of life without parole.
On Monday, Rubenstein, 61, entered the courtroom wearing a bright red prison jumpsuit, white canvas tennis shoes and wrist manacles.
Gray-haired and heavyset, he glanced repeatedly around the courtroom with a slight smile. He was accompanied by his attorney, David Voisin of Jackson.
District Attorney Dee Bates told Judge Taylor he did not wish to re-try the case.
“The state is going to elect not to pursue the death penalty,” he said.
Bates recommended that a life sentence without parole be added consecutively to the other life sentences.
Bates said relatives of the victims declined to attend. “We have contacted family and they elected not to be here during sentencing.”
Voisin and Rubenstein also declined to speak, after which Judge Taylor pronounced the sentence, and probation officer Todd Dillon led Rubenstein out of the courtroom.
On hand for the proceedings were a number of officials who had been involved in the case, including former sheriff C.V. Glennis, former Highway Patrol investigator Allen Applewhite, former sheriff’s deputy Don Lindley, former assistant DA Bill Goodwin, and victim’s assistance advocate Jamie Murrell.
The gruesome case drew national media attention and was featured on “60 Minutes II” in 2002 and A&E’s “Cold Case Files” in 2004.
