‘Psychopath’ Gets Life In Prison

The leader of a gang who threw Travis McIntier off a cliff at Lucky Peak Reservoir has escaped the death penalty, although the sentencing judge says there is little chance of rehabilitation for Richard Allen Dunn.

“There is no dispute that the defendant is a psychopath,” 4th District Judge Thomas Neville said Monday in sentencing Dunn to life in prison without a chance of parole for first-degree murder. “But singling him out for the death penalty is not just.”

McIntier, 20, was beaten and stuffed into the truck of his own car in November 1995. While McIntier pounded on the back seat and pleaded for his release, the group hunted for some place to deposit his body, Neville said.

They drove him to the high bridge above the reservoir, where Dunn, John “L.J.” Maynard and Shawn Norris threw him off the canyon rim to the rocks 144 feet below. Maynard and Norris have pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.