GALENA, ILL. -- - Convicted of murder, David Damm moved slower and stiffer Tuesday as jurors decided if his murder case should take one step closer to the death penalty.

Damm, who was found guilty Thursday of arranging Donnisha Hill's death in 2006, briefly talked to his mother in the courtroom following the half-hour eligibility hearing Tuesday.

He smiled, and his eyes lit up as they conversed.

A Jo Daviess County sheriff's deputy then motioned Damm to the door, and he was led to a wheelchair waiting just outside the courtroom.

Jurors returned about an hour later, ruling the case met the criteria for the death penalty based on the murder-for-hire allegation.

Another required criteria, that Damm was 18 or older at the time of the crime, wasn't disputed by the defense.

Damm turns 61 on Nov. 1.

Damm wasn't in the courtroom Tuesday morning for the jury's eligibility decision because he was headed to Freeport for a medical treatment.

Prosecutor Richard Schwind of the Illinois Attorney General's Office argued that the case met the criteria for capital punishment based on three factors -- because Hill was killed as part of a financial agreement between Damm and the killer, to keep her from testifying in a sexual abuse case and because she aided the state in a criminal investigation.

Waterloo police were focusing on Damm in a molestation probe in October 2006, and Hill said he had encounters with her in his office and at his home. She also gave her mother a semen-stained paper towel.

"The evidence was getting closer and closer and closer," Schwind told jurors. "He couldn't talk her out of it. He couldn't get her to lie … The best way to prevent somebody is to kill them."

The day after Waterloo detectives told Damm that Hill was sticking to her story and DNA tests were months away, Damm called his friend Bruce Burt. Burt, who testified for the state as part of a plea agreement that kept him off death row, said Damm agreed to give him $5,000 and a car to make the girl disappear.

Burt said he beat her to death with a hammer and cut her neck outside Galena.

Damm told jurors he hired Burt to help Hill run away, not kill her. The defense suggested Burt killed the girl when she resisted Burts sexual advances after they left Waterloo.

Mark Lyon, who is representing Damm, told jurors he had "not one whisper of complaint or criticism" regarding the guilty verdict.

But Lyon asked jurors to carefully consider their task.

He noted it was possible jurors may have convicted Damm of murder using a "felony murder" theory. Under that, jurors could have decided that Damm hadn't planned to kill Hill, but he was taking part in the crime of kidnapping, and she died as a result of that offense.

"I don't know if that was part of your considerations or not," Lyon said.

A little more than an hour later, jurors had their answer. They found Damm eligible for a death sentence under the murder for hire provision -- - that Damm procured another to commit the slaying for money or something of value.

They didn't find the case eligible under the other two criteria -- - that the killing was carried out to keep her from testifying or because she had helped authorities.

The jury did have a question about those two factors during their eligibility deliberations.

All that was needed to move the case to the next level was a finding on one of the criteria.

Contact Jeff Reinitz at (319) 291-1578 or jeff.reinitz@wcfcourier.com.