Brad Whitney, whose father, former Concord city councilor Robert “Eli” Whitney, was one of three people killed by a Boston-area drifter in 2001, said he had no problem that the death sentence the killer received Monday was not connected to the murder of his father.

Instead, Gary Lee Sampson is set to die for killing Jonathan Rizzo, a 19-year-old college student, a federal jury decided in a Boston courtroom after 16 hours of deliberation.

“You can only kill him once, so that is satisfactory,” Brad Whitney, a mechanical engineer who lives in Epsom, said by phone Monday night. “It’s what he deserved, so I’m glad he got the maximum penalty.”

A second death sentence, for the murder of Philip McCloskey, a 69-year-old pipe fitter, was vacated after the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict. Sampson pleaded guilty in New Hampshire in 2003 for killing Robert Whitney and was sentenced to life in prison, part of a criminal case that stretched on long after a jury had said in 2003 that Sampson should die for his crimes in Massachusetts.

The murder spree occurred over several days in July of 2001. Sampson was given a ride by McCloskey, who had stopped to buy flowers in Weymouth, Mass. Sampson tied McCloskey up with a belt, then stabbed him to death.

Later, Sampson hitchhiking and picked up by Rizzo in Plymouth, Mass. Rizzo had just left his job waiting tables at a seafood restaurant. Sampson tied Rizzo to a tree and stabbed him to death as well.

From there, Sampson drove north to Meredith and broke into a vacation lake house that was owned by a friend of Robert Whitney’s who had recently died. Whitney had agreed to help his friend’s widow renovate the home into a full-time residence and arrived there the next morning to mow the lawn.

Sampson, who had spent the night, strangled him to death. Sampson was arrested in Vermont after attacking a fourth man, who escaped unharmed.

Robert Whitney grew up in Penacook, in a white house across the street from the Morrill Farm, where he milked cows as a child and a young man. He founded a building business, which he ran with his wife, Susan, who still lives in Penacook, as does their daughter, Jennifer Habel.

Brad Whitney described his father as a typical New England Yankee who worked hard and rarely minced words. While he used his building skills to put food on the table, he also did many favors for those who needed help. He loved NASCAR and driver Ricky Craven, who lived in Concord for a while as he moved his way up the motor sports ladder.

Since the murders, the Whitney family has kept a low profile, rarely giving interviews as they watched the Sampson case unfold with no end in sight. Sampson’s original death penalty sentence was overturned in 2011 after the judge discovered a lone juror’s dishonesty during the selection process.

Jury selection for the latest sentencing phase began last October, at which time Brad Whitney granted an interview to the Monitor, saying he would serve as the family’s spokesperson to spare his mother and sister the pain of reliving Robert’s murder.

He assumed the same role Monday, saying about his mother and sister, “I’m sure they’re happy it’s over. This month some of this has been popping up in the news, but I’m sure it will quiet down, and I’m sure there will be some appeals. We’ll see how long it takes to carry out the sentence.”

Whitney attended closing arguments last week. He also drove down to Boston for the prosecution’s case, which he said lasted about a week. He had no interest in hearing the defense team’s arguments, which said Sampson’s childhood hardships and mental illness were the reasons jurors should choose life in prison rather than the death penalty.

“It was three weeks of hearing the defense, and I went for one day of that just to get a sense of what they were talking about,” Whitney said. “I did not want to hear a doctor who is getting paid to come up with a defense about why he should not receive (the death penalty). Other families of the victims went every day. It was pretty grueling for them.”

Sampson and Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are the first people sentenced to death in Massachusetts in decades, according to the Boston Globe.

Whitney was in touch with the families of Rizzo and McCloskey throughout the trial. He said a bond developed through common grief.

“I spoke to them and thought they had adopted me because I was going down so often,” Whitney said. “We were a quasi-family, but not for a great reason. They’re a good group of folks.”

(Ray Duckler can be reached at 369-3304, rduckler@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @rayduckler.)