Gypsy life was difficult for Tedor Davido, his sister told a Lancaster County judge today.

Their family lived out of a van at times and often went hungry.

The 10 children, of which Davido was the oldest, never went to school regularly.

When their father beat them and their mother, as he regularly did, Davido's sister Sandy testified, the children would gather together "and we'd pray to God for our father to die."

Years later, Davido was convicted and sentenced to death for murdering his 20-year-old girlfriend, Angelina Taylor, in May 2000 in Lancaster City.

The testimony was presented today in the first day of what is scheduled to be a week-long appeal hearing on Davido's conviction and death penalty.

Defense attorneys are trying to convince Judge Joseph Madenspacher that something in Davido's past or psyche, or the prosecution of his case, should allow their client to escape execution.

This morning, three defense attorneys who specialize in such cases — Andrew Harris, Matthew Lawry and James Mareno — surrounded Davido, who was dressed in a brown state prison jumpsuit.

Behind them, the attorneys had stacked about a dozen boxes of files, including information on several psychiatric experts and other witnesses they hope to call this week.

Across the courtroom, Jennifer Anne Buck from the state Attorney General's Office, sat alone, but also with boxes of files, as she represented the prosecution's case.

During his sister's testimony, Davido sat dry-eyed as his sister wept, recalling the brutal and, at times, bizarre, childhood.

Their grandfather was head of the gypsy clan, she testified, and their family traveled around the country, sometimes living out of a van, sometimes in small houses or apartments, sleeping on floors and living on welfare.

"We went through a lot," Ms. Davido said, describing their poverty as well as witnessing their mother's frequent severe beatings at the hand of their father.

Her brother, she said, as the oldest son and third in line to lead the gypsy clan, often tried to intervene and help their mother, Ms. Davido said, for which he, too, was beaten.

In 1988, the family was living in Las Vegas, Ms. Davido said, when their father "went crazy."

Their grandfather and the rest of the gypsy clan, she said, suddenly moved to New York City, abandoning them and leaving them with their obviously ill father.

Believing he was possessed by the devil, he tossed their belongings outside and dug a hole, she said, and ordered her brothers to urinate on family pictures and locks of their hair.

One day, Ms. Davido said, her father ordered them all into a park across the street, forcing them onto their knees to pray for his soul. Holding her infant sister in one arm and a Ninja knife in the other, her father stood over them as he made them pray throughout the night, he said.

Finally, her mother escaped and called the police. Her father was hospitalized and eventually died.

"Teddy tried to support us," she said, taking over the role as head of the household, "but he was 15, and it was too big of a family."

On May 14, 2000, city police went to the Hager Street home Davido and Taylor shared after receiving an anonymous phone call that morning of "a guy ... beating up a girl."

When they arrived, no one answered the door. Officers went inside and found Taylor alone and unconscious. She died a short time later.

During his trial in 2001, Davido repeatedly refused to be represented by court-appointed attorneys James Gratton and Merrill Spahn or cooperate with them in presenting a legal defense. The jury convicted him and sentenced him to death.

One of the arguments used by prosecutors in seeking the death penalty was that Davido had been arrested three years before Taylor's murder for another, unrelated violent crime.

In 1997, the jury was told, Davido was arrested for attempted murder, kidnapping, rape and weapons violations. He served two years in an Ohio prison on a reduced charge of assault and was paroled in 2000.

A short time later, Davido moved to Lancaster to be with his family. Taylor, whom he had met in Ohio, soon joined him here.

Davido, now 33 and one of six Lancaster County men on death row, has repeatedly and unsuccessfully appealed his case in state and federal court.

Tedor Davido