CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The jury that convicted East Cleveland serial killer Michael Madison began hearing evidence Thursday as it is now tasked with deciding whether to recommend his execution.

The jury will hear from three psychologists who will describe how Madison's troubled childhood influenced his killing of three young women, part of a mitigation phase where Madison's defense attorneys try to convince a jury not to recommend a death sentence.

"During the course of this hearing you will learn that Mike Madison, almost from birth, was on a predictable life trajectory that placed him where he sits today," defense attorney David Grant told the jury.

Between October 2012 and July 2013, Madison strangled three women. He folded them in half and stuffed them into garbage bags, stashing the corpses near his apartment at the corner of Hayden and Shaw avenues.

Madison's journey to the courtroom started long before 2012, Grant told the jury. Rather, the murders of Shirellda Terry, 18, Shetisha Sheeley, 28 and Angela Deskins, were part of a horror story that started when Madison was born.

Madison was born October 15, 1977 to Diane Madison and John Baldwin, the result of an accidental pregnancy. Baldwin denied that he was Michael Madison's father, and never became a part of his life.

Michael Madison's mother was ill-equipped to raise him from the beginning, Grant said, in part because of her own troubled childhood. Her mother left her father when she was young, eventually became a heroin addict and worked as a prostitute.

As a single mother, Diane Madison rarely invited other children over to play with him and never took him to meet other children, Grant said. Holidays and birthdays often passed without fanfare or even notice.

Michael Madison's early relationships were limited to his mother, her numerous transient boyfriends who disciplined him and a half-brother, Grant said.

In 1980, when he was two years old, child and family services discovered that young Michael's mother had stuffed food down his throat causing him to vomit, Grant said. When he vomited, she put him in a tub of hot water. When he screamed, she took him out and beat him with an extension cord.

Later that year, child and family services were again called to their home, his attorney said. Reports say that he had a large bruise and an injury on his forehead, requiring treatment at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

Six months later, at age 3, one of Diane Madison's boyfriends beat Michael Madison so badly with a belt that he started vomiting and had to be hospitalized.

"There was a time he was beaten so severely by a boyfriend of his mother that he lost hearing in one ear," forensic psychologist Dr. Daniel L. Davis said.

Reports from social workers showed that he suffered contusions, abrasions and swelling on the shaft of his penis. Child services took him away from his mother.

"Unfortunately they placed him with (his grandmother), who was a former prostitute and heroin addict," Grant said.

After she received counseling, authorities returned Michael Madison to his mother's care. Still, the boy was a frequent patient at Mt. Sinai Hospital.

In 1982 he was hospitalized with dehydration. A year later, social workers reported bruises and scratches on him and his half-brother.

Michael Madison had little recollection of the early abuse, other than being trapped in a long room with one of his mother's boyfriends. That is not unusual for young victims, Davis told the jury.

While he never recalled the extent of the abuse, psychological experts believe the helplessness and lack of nurturing relationships with adults led him to develop an alternate world in his mind where he could take control of his life. That disassociation with his childhood abuse fueled hatred toward women.

He regularly lashed out at any form of female authority, according to the earlier testimony of two former girlfriends. He told one of them that he "hates the female species."

As he grew, Michael Madison's inability to socialize with others got him in trouble. He was nomadic by the time he was 16 sleeping anywhere he could.

At 17, he was charged with delinquency for inappropriately touching a classmate. At 20, he was sentenced jail for drug abuse.

Several years later was convicted of rape.

Madison was ruled competent to stand trial, meaning court psychologists believe he is able to distinguish the difference between right and wrong. A psychologist also cleared Madison of any mental illness or defects.

Madison's violent upbringing left him without any moral compass, Grant said.

Davis described generational patterns of abuse, so pervasive that they left Madison with no foundation other than violence.

"This individual had no foundation on which to make the proper choices," Grant told the jury. "The evidence will show that Mike's life was further influenced by a disturbed family tree, comprised of generations of physical abusers, sex abusers. Literally, a family tree of abuse."

If the jury recommends death, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy McDonnell will have the ultimate say on whether or not to execute him or send him to life in prison.