PHOENIX — A 36-year-old man has been sentenced to death for sexually assaulting and killing a woman at a Phoenix gas station in 2020, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.
A jury in September found Humphry Dixon Dogbe guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, sexual assault and sexual abuse in the death of Lori Lynn Blankenship, KTAR News reported.
Dogbe was sentenced in October to 48 years in prison on the kidnapping, sexual assault and sexual abuse counts. Those terms will run concurrently with the death sentence, according to the report.
“Today’s death sentence for Mr. Dogbe serves as a reminder that when a life is taken, the law can impose its most severe consequence,” Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in a news release. She added that Blankenship “was more than the victim in this case” and that her memory “deserves to be honored.”
According to prosecutors, Phoenix police officers were called to a gas station near 27th Avenue and Interstate 10 at about 4:30 a.m. on May 8, 2020. They found Blankenship on the ground with signs of trauma. Authorities said she had been dead for several hours by the time officers arrived.
Surveillance cameras at the gas station recorded Dogbe dragging Blankenship across the pavement before choking and sexually assaulting her and then leaving, prosecutors said.
A witness who tried to stop the attack later identified Dogbe in a photo lineup. Investigators said a camera at a neighboring business captured him about three hours later wearing the same clothing seen in the gas station video.
Prosecutors said Dogbe admitted to sexually assaulting and choking Blankenship after she refused his solicitation for sex. He lived in the area at the time and was a registered sex offender, according to the county attorney’s office.
Death sentences in Arizona are automatically appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court.
Sources: KTAR News. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Joe Gratz / CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.
