Trial Set For 3 Charged With Killing 6 Over Xbox
Kay Shukwit still shudders when she thinks about the final moments of her 19-year-old daughter's life, clubbed with baseball bats and stabbed.
Saturday, July 1, 2006
Three men charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Michelle Ann Nathan and five other young people in Deltona two years ago are scheduled to go on trial Wednesday in St. Augustine on a change of venue. Another man has pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the prosecution.
"I have nightmares of her screaming, 'Mommy!' I'm trying to reach her in the darkness and I can't reach her," Shukwit said.
"I think about the terror and horror, what they went through knowing they were going to die," she said.
The victims, some of whom were sleeping when the attack occurred about 1 a.m., did not put up a fight or try to escape. All were stabbed, but autopsies showed they died of the beatings.
Even two small dogs were massacred.
What made the killings even more shocking, investigators say, is the alleged motive - the lead suspect was angry because one of the victims had taken his Xbox video game and some clothing from her grandparents' vacant home where he had been squatting.
The case was moved from DeLand to St. Augustine after it was determined media coverage of the case was too intense in central Florida, making it almost impossible to pick a fair jury.
A pool of 960 potential jurors, about 120 each day, has been summoned from St. Johns County. Prosecutors estimate the trial could last four to six weeks, including a week of jury selection, two weeks for prosecutors to present their case, one week for the defense case and then a penalty phase if the defendants are convicted.
Troy Victorino, 29, a former prison inmate who is believed to be the ringleader in the violent attacks; Michael Salas, 20, and Jerone Hunter, 20, all face six counts of first-degree murder, five-counts of mutilating a dead human body and other felonies.
If the three men are convicted, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
"The evidence, the facts and the law support it," State Attorney John Tanner said in a news conference after the men were indicted.
Bill Belanger, father of 22-year-old victim Erin Belanger, plans to sit on the front row during the trial, hoping to see justice done for the killing of his daughter.
"It will be the end of a chapter. My life has been on hold since the day Erin was murdered. I have a life sentence."
It was his daughter who called police to have a group of squatters, including Victorino, evicted from her grandparents' vacant house. She picked up Victorino's Xbox and some of his clothing and kept it at her house.
That enraged Victorino and he enlisted the other three suspects to help him carry out the attacks, prosecutors say. A Wal-Mart clerk has told investigators the four men joked about bashing people to death while shopping for baseball bats two days before the slayings.
While Belanger plans to attend trial every day, Shukwit doesn't know if she can deal with the strain.
"It does set you back mentally and physically, too," she said.
Both Belanger and Shukwit want the three defendants executed.
"I want Troy Victorino to sit on death row for 30 years, sit in a 6 by 9 cell, where he can no longer hurt or manipulate anybody ever again," Belanger said. "But it wouldn't break my heart if they did it in a week."
"I've always been in favor of the death penalty," Belanger said. "I'd flip the switch with no reservations."
Victorino's lawyer, Jeff Dowdy thinks it is unfair that his client has been labeled the mastermind behind the attacks.
"Everybody is going to be jumping on Troy, pointing a finger at him," said Dowdy, who said the judge had denied a motion for separate trials for the defendants, although some have already given statements about the killings. "That's unfair and we have complained about that."
At the time of the slayings, Victorino was on a seven-year probation after serving six years in prison for beating a 20-year-old friend in the face with a walking stick. He was arrested eight days before the killings on a felony battery charge for beating up a friend and was quickly released on a $2,500 bond.
Dowdy also is worried on the impact of bloody pictures of the victims and the murder scene on jurors.
"It's going to be a bad day when they introduce those," Dowdy said.
A fourth man, Robert Cannon, 19, pleaded guilty in October to all the charges. In exchange for his testimony, he will receive a life sentence instead of the death penalty.
Killed in the Aug. 6, 2004, attack were Belanger and Nathan; Francisco Ayo-Roman, 30; Anthony Vega, 34; Roberto Gonzalez, 28, and Jonathan Gleason, 17. Most were co-workers at a Burger King in Deltona.
"I just hope justice prevails. My daughter was such a beautiful person, it is a shame that she is gone," Shukwit said.
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