Jury recommends death penalty for ex-prison guard trainee who murdered 5 women inside Florida bank (2024)

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FILE - A Highlands County Sheriff's SWAT vehicle is stationed out in front of a SunTrust Bank branch, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla., where authorities say five people were shot and killed. Assistant State Attorney Bonde Johnson told jurors during closing arguments Wednesday, June 26, 2024, that Xaver, 27, committed the murders at Sebring's SunTrust bank in Florida in 2019, to satisfy his yearslong desire to experience killing, forcing the women to lie down before executing them. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)

A jury on Wednesday recommended a former prison guard trainee be sentenced to death for his execution-style murders of five women inside a Florida bank five years ago, a massacre that fulfilled his long-stated desire to kill.

Jurors voted 9-3 to recommend Zephen Xaver receive the death penalty for the Jan. 23, 2019, murders at the SunTrust Bank in Sebring, about 85 miles (135 kilometers) southeast of Tampa.

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Xaver, 27, stared straight ahead and showed no emotion as the verdicts were read after the Highlands County jury deliberated for less than three hours.

The final decision rests with Circuit Judge Angela Cowden, who could reject the jury's recommendation and sentence Xaver to life in prison without parole. She said she will set a sentencing date after a hearing next month.

Under a 2023 Florida law, the jury only had to vote 8-4 favoring the death penalty for Cowden to impose that sentence. State law had required a unanimous jury recommendation for a judge to impose death, but Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature changed it after a 9-3 jury vote spared the shooter who murdered 17 people at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.

Xaver pleaded guilty last year to five counts of first-degree murder, negating a planned trial that was delayed for years by the COVID-19 pandemic, legal arguments and attorney illness.

Xaver’s victims included customer Cynthia Watson, 65, just married less than a month; bank teller coordinator Marisol Lopez, 55, a mother of two; banker trainee Ana Pinon-Williams, a 38-year-old mother of seven; bank teller Debra Cook, a 54-year-old mother of two and a grandmother; and banker Jessica Montague, 31, a mother of one and stepmother of four.

He ordered them to lie on the floor and then shot them each in the head as they cried out, “Why?”

Earlier Wednesday, prosecutor Bonde Johnson said in closing arguments that Xaver deserved the death penalty because the massacre was long-planned, "shockingly evil” and fulfilled his yearslong desire to experience killing.

“He didn't murder one person to truly know what it would be like to kill. He killed five. He watched them laying there on the floor. They were under his control, for his enjoyment, as he shot each one,” she said.

But defense attorney Jane McNeill had urged jurors to spare Xaver, saying he is mentally ill and has been hearing voices since childhood urging him to kill himself and others. He sought help, she said, but never truly got it.

“We ask you to show Zephen what he may least deserve — compassion, grace and mercy,” McNeill told the panel, her voice breaking as she said "sentencing Zephen to life is the right thing to do.”

During the two-week trial, prosecutors portrayed Xaver as a cold and calculated killer who pretended to hear voices to cover for his violent impulses. His attorneys countered he has long suffered psychotic episodes.

In 2014, Xaver's high school principal in Indiana contacted police after he told a counselor he dreamed of killing classmates. His mother, Misty Hendricks, promised to get him psychological help. She testified at trial that she stopped his medications at 17 because he seemed to be doing better.

He joined the Army, but was discharged during boot camp in 2016 because of homicidal thoughts. Those thoughts continued.

“It’s all I can think of, it’s all I hear every day and it’s all I see every day. It’s all I smell and taste every day: blood, death and murder. It’s all I have happening 24/7,” Xaver wrote a friend. He made similar posts online.

He moved to Sebring in 2018, was hired by the local prison but quit after two months. That was the day after he bought his gun and two weeks before the massacre.

The morning of the killings, he had a long text message conversation with a girlfriend, telling her it would be the “best day of his life” but refused to say why.

He finally told her just before entering the bank that he was about to die. He then added “the fun part.”

“I’m taking a few people with me because I’ve always wanted to kill," he texted.

Afterward, Xaver threatened suicide but eventually surrendered.

Defense witnesses testified Xaver was a quiet, kind child, but struggled in school and then took a dark turn in adolescence.

Melissa Manges, his high school counselor, testified Xaver wanted more extensive help for his disturbing thoughts, but no long-term residential programs accepted him.

“The system failed Zephen,” she said.

Brian Haas, the local state attorney, welcomed the verdict but said in his statement that the focus should be on the victims, “not the monster who committed these crimes.”

“Five women, who were mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, and so much more to so many people, had their lives cut short on that fateful day in January 2019. Their families have suffered so much without them while they waited for justice,” he said.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Jury recommends death penalty for ex-prison guard trainee who murdered 5 women inside Florida bank (2024)

FAQs

Jury recommends death penalty for ex-prison guard trainee who murdered 5 women inside Florida bank? ›

A jury on Wednesday recommended a former prison guard trainee be sentenced to death for his execution-style murders of five women inside a Florida bank five years ago, a massacre that fulfilled his long-stated desire to kill. Jurors voted 9-3 to recommend Zephen Xaver receive the death penalty for the Jan.

How many inmates are wrongfully executed? ›

The Death Penalty Information Center (U.S.) has published a partial listing of wrongful executions that, as of the end of 2020, identified 20 death-row prisoners who were "executed but possibly innocent". Judicial murder is a type of wrongful execution.

How many jurors in a death penalty case? ›

3 - A fundamental principle of death penalty law in the United States is that no person may be convicted of a capital crime except by the unanimous verdict of a 12-member jury. That is the law in all of the 38 states that have the death penalty, as well as in federal cases. There is, however, one exception.

What happens if you survive an execution? ›

If someone survives the death penalty, they are usually re-executed, sometimes on the spot. Survival of the death penalty is not common, but has happened: people survive the intense shock of the electric chair or a lethal injection, requiring a second administration of the execution.

Which state executes the most inmates? ›

Texas has executed the most inmates of any other state in the nation, and it's not even close. The Lone Star state has put 589 inmates to death since 1982, including the Wednesday execution of Arthur Lee Burton for the murder of Nancy Adleman, a 48-year-old mother of three.

Can a judge override a jury death penalty? ›

Use in capital cases. Only four U.S. states have allowed judicial overrides: Alabama, Delaware, Florida, and Indiana. Indiana abolished it in 2002, Florida in 2016, and Alabama in 2017. In 2016, the Delaware Supreme Court declared the state's death penalty law unconstitutional due to the override.

What is the jury death penalty in Florida? ›

If eligible and the jury has at least 8 votes for a death sentence, the recommendation MUST be for death. If there are less than 8 votes for death, the recommendation MUST be for life without parole. If the jury's recommendation is for life without parole, the judge MUST impose that sentence.

What do death row inmates get? ›

Inmates on death row receive a regular diet, and have access to reading, writing, and legal materials. Depending upon their custody level, some death row inmates may have a radio.

How many people are wrongfully convicted in the US? ›

Conservative estimates suggest that 1 percent of the 2.2 million individuals in U.S. prisons are innocent. That means at least 22,000 people are behind bars for crimes they did not commit. The fallout hurts not only individuals but communities as well.

Has anyone ever been pardoned from death row? ›

Capital Punishment Clemency

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, hundreds of death row inmates have been granted clemency for humanitarian reasons. Humanitarian reasons include doubts about the defendant's guilt and conclusions by the governor regarding the death penalty process.

What is the rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death? ›

The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. We use survival analysis to model this effect, and estimate that if all death-sentenced defendants remained under sentence of death indefinitely at least 4.1% would be exonerated.

Has an average of 3.94 wrongly convicted death row prisoners been exonerated each year since 1973? ›

📣 According to the Death Penalty Information Center, more than 195 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence since 1973. An average of 3.94 wrongly convicted death row prisoners have been exonerated each year.

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