Erick Hall returned to Idaho's death row Thursday as the first state inmate to be sentenced to die for two unrelated murders.

In fact, the jury decided that Hall's previous conviction of murder in the death of Lynn Henneman in 2004 was the deciding factor that earned Hall his second death sentence for the murder of Cheryl Hanlon three years later.

Considering Hall's status as one of the most notorious killers in recent Boise history, Thursday's verdict in his first-degree murder case seemed anticlimactic.

None of Hanlon's family or friends attended the hearing. Jurors were briskly escorted out of the courtroom after the verdict was read, and the handful of court employees went back to work. Hall remained silent as he left the courtroom.

Jan Bennetts, the Ada County deputy prosecutor who handled the case, stood in an empty hallway after the sentencing.

"Cheryl Hanlon's life was important. It was justice in this case for Cheryl," Bennetts said, who thanked the jury for their work.

Defense attorney Rob Chastain said he respected the jury's decision but was disappointed.

"We are always hopeful that (an inmate) can avoid it," he said. "I am not going to second guess the jury."

In Idaho, a death penalty conviction automatically goes to appeal.

Boise Deputy Police Chief Jim Kerns said the verdict was good news for a community Hall terrorized with the rape and murder of two women earlier this decade. Hanlon was found dead in the Foothills in 2003; Henneman was abducted as she walked on the Greenbelt then raped, killed and thrown in the Boise River in 2000.

"Hall is a bad guy," Kerns said. "He caused a lot of concern for our citizens who use our Greenbelt and parks. I feel it's a good day for citizens in Boise to know that this is over."

The sentence ended a trial that had been delayed several times. Earlier this year, 4th District Judge Thomas Neville decided to bus in a jury from Gooding County because of pretrial publicity in Boise.

Jurors heard three weeks of testimony, deliberated 2› days before finding him guilty, and took four hours to decide the penalty.

In deciding on death rather than life in prison, the six-man, six-woman jury had to consider Hall's upbringing, which his defense attorney used to argue for the jury to spare his life. The jury heard testimony that Hall was sexually, physically, and emotionally abused as a child and had mental health and drug addiction problems.

However, the jury agreed that his troubles did not outweigh the fact that not only had he killed Hanlon but that he had committed murder before.

Hall returned to his cell Thursday in the Idaho Maximum Security Institution south of Boise, where 17 other men await execution. One woman is on death row in Pocatello.

Hall will continue to be kept alone in an 8-by-12-foot cell for 23 hours a day. He can leave the cell for one hour up to five times a week for exercise alone in a slightly larger cell.

He also can meet with lawyers in a separate area and have up to four visits a month.

It could be years or even decades before Hall's appeals are exhausted. One Idaho inmate, Lacey Sivak, has been on death row since 1981.

Idaho has executed only one person since reinstating the death penalty in 1977.

Double-murderer Keith Eugene Wells was put to death Jan. 6, 1994, after dropping all his appeals and demanding lethal injection. Wells had been convicted in 1992 of clubbing a man and woman to death outside a Boise bar.