Daniel Thomas Tavares, Jr. is seen in a Pierce County courtroom during his arraignment for the murders of Beverly and Brian Mauck.

TACOMA, Wash. -- The family of a newlywed couple gunned down in their home is urging the Pierce County prosecutor to seek a harsh sentence for Daniel Tavares.

Some members of the family are urging the prosecutor to seek the death penalty, but the family is not united on this matter.  

Tavares, 41, is charged with aggravated first-degree murder in the Nov. 17 shooting deaths of Brian and Beverly Mauck.

"Mostly our message is whatever they decide we just want him to suffer," Beverly's mother, Karen Slater said on Thursday. "He deserves that."

Slater and other relatives met privately with Pierce County Prosecutor Jerry Horne. They said they're comfortable leaving the final decision up to the prosecutor.

"We fully trust them to make the right decision," Slater said.

"They're very bright and I feel trustworthy as to reflecting our feelings and doing what is best."

Horne still has three weeks to make a decision about whether to seek the death penalty.

He's a death penalty proponent, but he also cautions families that the penalty is rarely carried out.

Only Charles Campbell, Westley Allen Dodd, Jeremy Sagastegui, and Robert Elledge have been put to death since the penalty was reinstated in the late 1970s.

And with all of the court appeals, the waiting can be grueling on the victims' families, as with the case of Mitchell Rupe where he got life instead of death.

"They've shared everything with us and we've shared everything with them and so we're confident they're going to make the right decision," Slater said.

Tavares has pleaded not guilty to the killings, which investigators say were motivated by an insult and a $50 debt.

He was released from prison in Massachusetts in June after serving a 16-year manslaughter sentence for killing his mother.

Prosecutors there had tried to keep Tavares behind bars for allegedly assaulting two prison guards near the end of his sentence, but a judge released him.

He moved to Graham and lived next to the Maucks, who were found shot to death in their own home.

Tavares initially told investigators he heard gunshots while he was in bed with his wife at their home. He also described two men and a red truck he said he saw outside. "These various statements were later acknowledged to be lies," prosecutors said in the charging papers.

His wife, Jennifer Tavares, has been charged with rendering criminal assistance, a gross misdemeanor, for lying to investigators. She initially told police her husband was with her when they heard gunfire.