Some students say Anthony B. Mertz, the former Eastern student found guilty for the murder of Eastern student Shannon McNamara, should face the death penalty.

“Absolutely he should get the death penalty,” Chris Grimm, a junior psychology major, said. “It’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

“There have been too many people on death row for too many years, and I don’t think that is the way we should go. They took a life, and they shouldn’t have any life for them either.”

Colette Arnold, a sophomore undeclared major, also thinks Mertz should pay the ultimate price.

“Do unto others as they do to you,” she said. “He just deserves what’s coming toward him.”

Other students take a stiff stand on the decision of Mertz’s fate.

“If he killed her, he deserves the same,” said junior marketing major Lisa Bateman.

“And I think he did it, and I don’t think we should rehabilitate him just because he killed somebody.”

Nay Wright, a sophomore marketing major, also said Mertz should be given the death penalty instead of being rehabilitated.

“Who knows what could happen if we only sent him to jail?” he said. “He could get out or get parole. If I do something bad to a woman, I am going to be penalized, even if I don’t want it to happen.”

Mertz was found guilty of first-degree murder, home invasion and aggravated criminal sexual assault Wednesday; and the general consensus of students agree with the jury’s verdict.

“I would have been shocked if the verdict would have been ‘not guilty,'” Marissa Justiniano, a sophomore special education major, said.

Grimm, 49, and the mother of a 20-year-old daughter, said she was disturbed by the vulgarity of Mertz’s actions from reading about them in The Daily Eastern News and watching coverage on television.

“I was shocked at what (Mertz) did to her,” she said. “I can’t envision all the terror she went through. If that was my daughter it would make me sick – I’d be emotionally and physically ill.”

Although many students expressed desire for the death penalty, not all agreed with the action.

“I don’t much believe in the death penalty -why take someone else’s life?” said Doug Walk, a freshman business major who recently left the military to come to Eastern and had not followed the Mertz trial in-depth.

Marques Sewell, a junior computer information systems major, also believes Mertz should not die for his crime.

“Taking his life won’t do anything,” he said.

Wright was on campus when the incident happened.

“Everybody was talking about it, but I was sort of oblivious to it,” he said.

If there is a general consensus on the incident, it is the perception of Mertz.

“I think he is a cold killer,” Bateman said.

“He’s a murderer,” Grimm said without hesitation.

McNamara’s legacy will live on with students.

“I think even though I didn’t know her, and most people didn’t, she still touched people,” Bateman said. “She touched me.”

But Arnold said she could see this happening again.

“It could happen again, we don’t know everyone here,” she said.

“Even if something dramatic never happened before this, you can’t guarantee it won’t happen ever again.”