Killer whose Nevada case sparked ‘unprecedented’ death penalty reversal bid gets life sentence

A man who was the target of a Trump administration effort to put him to death after Biden-era prosecutors said they would not pursue capital punishment was sentenced to life in prison, prosecutors said.

U.S. District Judge Mirandu Du sentenced Cory Spurlock on Monday after jurors returned a guilty verdict against him in September.

A jury found him guilty of counts including murder-for-hire conspiracy, tampering with a witness by killing and stalking resulting in death in connection with the slayings of Will and Yesenia Larsen, who were shot and stabbed to death in 2020 and whose bodies were discovered in Mono County, California.

Jurors deadlocked on a count of murder while engaged in narcotics trafficking after authorities alleged he killed a man named Jered Stefansky, whose skeletal remains were discovered in Pershing County, Nevada in 2021, according to court records and prosecutors.

Federal prosecutors said in a July 2024 notice that they would not pursue the death penalty, then filed a formal notice stating that they would seek death on April 10, just 12 days before the intended start of Spurlock’s trial.

The reversal came after the U.S. attorney general’s office under the administration of President Donald Trump issued a Feb. 5 memo that stated federal prosecutors would be expected to seek death in some cases and directed the attorney general’s capital review committee to re-evaluate cases from President Joe Biden’s administration in which prosecutors decided not to do so.

Spurlock’s federal public defenders previously said the situation was “unprecedented.”

“Never before has an Attorney General’s decision not to seek the death penalty against a criminal defendant been reversed,” they wrote. “Mr. Spurlock is the first individual in the history of the modern federal death penalty to be provided formal notice that the United States would not seek death against him and then have that notice replaced with a formal death notice under these circumstances.”

Prosecutors defended their decision, saying it reflected their “unique duty to seek justice.”

But Du was critical.

In a May ruling, the judge said the Justice Department fell “far short of justifying its attempt to seek death” and that prosecutors had violated court orders and Spurlock’s due process rights.

She struck down the prosecutors’ plan to pursue capital punishment. Prosecutors appealed her decision to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, then voluntarily dismissed their appeal in June.

According to the news release from the Nevada U.S. Attorney’s office, Spurlock was part of a group involved in an illegal, large scale marijuana distribution business in Mound House, Nevada, which is about 35 miles from Reno.

Stefansky went missing during a marijuana transaction in June 2020. His mother then spoke about her son’s disappearance on a podcast and Spurlock, who listened to it, “believed Will Larsen, his partner in the marijuana business, was a rat and needed to die,” according to the release.

Spurlock promised to pay a co-conspirator for help killing Larsen and in November 2020, he and others stalked Larsen and Larsen’s wife, Yesenia Larsen, in the area of Reno and Carson City, following them to a location near Bridgeport, California, prosecutors said.

“There were no bounds on the defendant’s cruel and violent actions,” said Sigal Chattah, who is referred to in the release as Nevada’s first assistant U.S. attorney. “There is no parole in the federal system. The defendant will never walk outside of the prison walls.”

Trump’s administration appointed Chattah to serve as interim U.S. attorney in March, then extended her term in July by making her acting U.S. attorney.

Federal public defenders challenged her appointment and Arizona-based Senior U.S. District Judge David Campbell disqualified Chattah from multiple cases in September. He agreed to pause his decision pending appeal, but has said “still holds that Ms. Chattah has not been validly appointed.”

Oral argument on the appeal of Campbell’s decision is scheduled for Feb. 12.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.