Death Penalty Case

A death penalty is starting in Connecticut. Three years after a 29-year-old mentally-retarded woman was beaten, strangled and raped, one of the two men accused in the case is facing a trial that could lead to the death penalty. Testimony was to begin today in the Superior Court trial of Timothy Solek, 22, who in addition to capital felony, is charged with felony murder, murder, first-degree sexual assault and second-degree sexual assault in the death of Melissa Mills. Police said that Solek and an accomplice, Scott Allen Smith, 25, had gone to Mills' apartment on May 13, 1995 with some beer and had made sexual advances. According to police, when Mills tried to resist, Smith allegedly began strangling her and Solek hit her in the head with a can opener and an iron. After Mills stopped struggling, and was apparently dead, police said, the two men sexually assaulted her. The state had sought to charge both men with capital felony, a crime punishable by the death penalty. But following separate probable cause hearings, one judge found the state could try Solek for capital felony, while another would not allow Smith to be charged with that crime. In May 1997, the state Supreme Court cleared the way for Solek to face the death penalty, ruling that just because there is evidence Solek acted as an accessory to the crime does not mean he cannot get the death penalty.