Wichita ? The mother of two brothers convicted of killing five people pleaded with jurors Tuesday to spare the men’s lives, saying her children are pretty good and what happened two years ago was a horrible mistake.

“I know other families out there are probably hating me to death. I am sorry for them, but spare my children. I love them just as much as you would love your children. … I believe there is good in them. There is just something went wrong along the way,” Janice Harding testified.

Harding said her job in Dodge City had kept her from most of her sons’ trial.

“I don’t know what went wrong, but I love you I love you both,” she told her sons from the witness stand. “And I am sorry for everything that happened. If I did something wrong, I am sorry. I’d just like to say I am sorry to everybody. I don’t know if this is my fault; if it was, I am just sorry. Sorry.”

Her sons, Reginald and Jonathan Carr, were convicted Monday on charges stemming from a Wichita crime spree in December 2000 that left five people dead, four of them shot execution style in the back of the head as they knelt side-by-side in a snow-covered soccer field.

Dysfunctional family

Defense attorneys for the two also asked jurors Tuesday to show their clients mercy in sentencing them, blaming the brothers’ troubled childhood and dysfunctional family for their problems.

“We accept your verdict. We understand it. We respect what you have done in this case,” Jay Greeno, an attorney for Reginald Carr, said Tuesday as the penalty phase of the brothers’ capital murder trial began.

Jurors returned capital murder verdicts in the Dec. 15, 2000, deaths of Aaron Sander, 29, Brad Heyka, 27, Jason Befort, 26; and Heather Muller, 25. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the four murders.

“I ask you to extend mercy to Reginald Carr that he did not extend to those four young individuals,” Greeno said to jurors.

Befort’s girlfriend was shot in the head during the attacks but survived and was among the 97 witnesses testifying at a trial that lasted nearly two months.

Defendant Jonathan Carr watches as the jury is polled on its verdict in his murder trial in Wichita. Jonathan, along with his brother Reginald on Monday were found guilty of of four counts of capital murder for the execution-style killing of four people two years ago on a soccer field. Tuesday, the penalty phase of their trial began.

The brothers also were convicted of forcing the five friends to engage in sex acts with each other and of raping the women.

The Carrs also were convicted of first-degree murder for the shooting of Ann Walenta four days before the quadruple murder. Walenta later died.

Prosecution stands firm

Sedgwick County Dist. Atty. Nola Foulston asked jurors Tuesday to sentence the brothers to death for the quadruple killings. She rested her case without calling any more witnesses beyond those who testified earlier in the guilt phase of the trial.

“We know from the evidence they committed these crimes because they wanted to, because they chose to,” Foulston said.

She also argued the crimes were premeditated and that the brothers wanted “to leave no person behind to say what heinous, cruel things happened to them before they were executed.”

Greeno told jurors Tuesday that he would present evidence showing Reginald Carr, 24, was brain damaged, and the things that happened to him in childhood affected his development.

Defense attorney Ron Evans told jurors his client, Jonathan Carr, 22, had no serious criminal record before the crime spree. He said jurors need to know there is some good in Jonathan Carr.