LAWRENCE MAY GUILTY OF FIRST-DEGREE MURDER

By Kelly Pakula, Bay City News

January 25, 2006

A 10 woman, two man jury has returned a guilty of first-degree murder verdict for Lawrence Edward May, the Daly City man accused of fatally stabbing his wife with a pair of scissors in a San Mateo elevator in 2004.

He was also found guilty of the special enhancement of lying in wait, which makes him eligible for life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was also found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon and inflicting great bodily injury.

May showed no emotion when the jury read its verdict in a San Mateo County courtroom this afternoon. The jury deliberated for a combined three hours on Tuesday afternoon and this morning.

May, 50, admitted to stabbing his estranged wife, Sharen Sulpizio May, 40, over 100 times with a pair of scissors following a child-custody mediation session in San Mateo on March 25.

The prosecution argued that May planned the attack on his wife, and brought the scissors to the mediation session with the intent to kill her.

The Mays separated on Feb. 28, 2004, and on March 25 of that same year they went to a mediation session in an effort to reach an agreement regarding the custody of their three children.

May, who was under the influence of methamphetamine at the time of the mediation session, stormed out of mediator Dianne Thomas' office and returned to his car after he and Sulpizio May failed to reach a custody agreement.

He will be sentenced on March 21 at 9 a.m. in Judge John Runde's
courtroom, Department 15.

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