As the guilty verdicts were announced, Paddy, suave and confident-looking in a charcoal double-breasted suit, kissed the cheek of his defense attorney, Janis Smarro. He coolly nodded to his family sitting in the front row.
Later, after the jury left the courtroom, Paddy exploded in anger at the judge because sentencing was delayed. The jury, which is sequestered, will deliberate today on whether to sentence Paddy to life imprisonment or death.
"Let them do whatever they're going to do. Let's get it over with," Paddy blurted to his attorney.
Then, under his breath, he told the judge: "You m-f-. You bald-headed m- f-."
"Would you be seated Mr. Paddy, out of respect for the court?" responded Judge Robert A. Latrone.
Smarro said, "Judge, it's Mr. Paddy's intent that he doesn't have to go to the prison and have this linger for the rest of the day."
"Well, he will just have to because it's my court," Latrone said.
Paddy jumped to his feet and shouted: "Well, why don't you just take a gun and shoot me right here! I've been taking this five weeks here, man . . . Sitting up there like you're a God."
Latrone responded: "You put yourself here, Mr. Paddy."
"You're right about that," Paddy replied.
"Your true self is coming out at the end, Mr. Paddy," said Latrone.
"All right, take him out," the judge then ordered sheriff's deputies.
It was the second jury to hear the case. A jury in April could not decide whether Paddy was guilty of killing Whaley and two men she allegedly saw Paddy fatally shoot in 1991.
Because of difficulty getting witnesses to testify at the first trial, the District Attorney's Office dropped murder charges against Paddy in the earlier killings.
He went on trial Nov. 14 only in Whaley's death.
Roxanne Whaley, the victim's mother, pursed her lips and began to cry after the verdicts were announced.
"I'm just glad that there's a God somewhere," she said, leaving the courtroom with her daughter, Rochelle, 19. "He's bad. My baby's gone, but justice has been done. He won't be able to hurt nobody else."
Whaley was killed, Assistant District Attorney William Fisher said, because she had finally agreed to testify against Paddy and to tell what she saw in 1991, when her cousin, John Rainey, 32, and another man, John Jackson, 31, were fatally shot at a playground at 22d and Clearfield Streets.
"The message is if you kill a witness we are going to prosecute you," prosecutor William Fisher said afterward. "He stalked LaShawn for three days, and waited for her to come to her grandmother's house. Donny Paddy shot her the first time in the face. He literally blew her brains out. Then as she lay on the ground, he shot her five more times."
Fisher said he would ask the jury to sentence Paddy to death because of three aggravating factors - he killed a witness; he endangered the life of Whaley's sister, Tara, 14, who was with Whaley when she was killed; and he has a previous first-degree murder conviction for the 1989 slaying of boxer Wilbur ''Little Man" Thomas.
At the earlier trial in April, a key prosecution witness, Freddy Murphy, refused to testify and was jailed for contempt of court. Murphy came forward at the second trial, and testified that he took Whaley to Maryland in September 1992 - at the request of a friend of Paddy's - so she would be unable to testify against Paddy.
The jury also heard court testimony of another key prosecution witness, Shawn Roussaw, who testified at a 1993 preliminary hearing that he saw Paddy - wearing a flowered dress, black wig and tan coat - in a blue car headed toward Whaley moments before she was slain.
Roussaw was himself slain in July 1994. Police are still investigating his death and have not ruled out that one of Paddy's associates may have killed him.
Fisher argued that witnesses' testimony and fingerprints proved Paddy had killed Whaley. Police found two prints from Paddy's palm and thumb on the outside passenger-side mirror of the blue getaway car. The getaway driver, Kevin Green, 31, was convicted by a jury in February of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
