Vegas torture slaying death penalty trial begins

LAS VEGAS (AP) " A jury in Las Vegas is hearing evidence in the death penalty trial of a 32-year-old man accused in the gruesome torture slaying of a man killed with a pencil and screwdriver pounded into his skull.

Corey Pearce is the third person to face trial in the 2006 "diary slaying" of 42-year-old Michael McClain.

Authorities say McClain also was bound to a wheelchair, beaten with a bat, hog-tied, gagged with duct tape and dumped in the desert.

Last year, 26-year-old Cassandra Thomas and 33-year-old Joey Salas were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to prison.

Thomas' diary, with graphic accounts of the slaying, was found when she and Pearce were arrested in June 2006 in Jacksonville Beach, Fla.