GUILTY FL - Alex Zaldivar, 19, killed, 2 injured in Ocoee home invasion, 10 Sept 2012

Jury selection began Monday morning in the first-degree murder trial of Emmaneul Wallace, one of three men accused in the suspected witness-murder plot that claimed the life of 19-year-old Alex Zaldivar.

Wallace is the second of the accused to stand trial; co-defendant Donnell Godfrey was convicted and sentenced to life behind bars last year, while alleged mastermind Bessman Okafor is still awaiting his trial...

Detectives say the bloodshed was meant to silence witnesses. Brienna Campos and Zaldivar were victims set to testify the next day against Okafor, who had invaded their home months earlier for a robbery.

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A man convicted in a home invasion murder received four life sentences in court on Wednesday.

Earlier this month, a jury found Emmaneul Wallace guilty of murder and burglary in connection to the 2012 killing of 19-year-old Alex Zaldivar...

The alleged ringleader in the murder, Bessman Okafor, is not scheduled to go to trial until August. He was charged with capital murder.

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After eight hours of deliberation, the jury in Bessman Okafor's death-penalty trial filed into a tense courtroom Wednesday with a verdict in hand.

Its decision came on the day murder victim Alex Zaldivar would have turned 22 years old.

Moments before the guilty verdicts were read, a friend of the Zaldivar family turned to one of Okafor's relatives and said, "Happy birthday, Alex," as sheriff's deputies warned they would remove rowdy people from the courtroom.

Sobbing broke out as the two surviving victims of Okafor's 2012 attack — siblings Brienna and Remington Campos — learned jurors had convicted the 30-year-old of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder and armed burglary.

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Convicted murderer Bessman Okafor, who masterminded a witness execution in 2012 while enrolled in the county's electric monitoring program, is heading to death row, a judge ordered Tuesday.

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Sherria Gordon, the 25-year-old former girlfriend of the plot's mastermind, Bessman Okafor, was sentenced to eight years in prison, but given credit for roughly three years she has already served...

Meanwhile, 32-year-old Nesly Ciceron, who prosecutors credited with identifying Okafor's fellow triggermen, was sentenced to 42 months, but given credit for all but about six months of that term...

The two have been awaiting sentencing in the Orange County Jail since taking plea deals in 2013 that required them to testify against Okafor, Donnell Godfrey and Emmaneul Wallace.

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- A convicted killer, sentenced to death at the Orange County Courthouse, will get a second chance at life. This comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Florida's death penalty law unconstitutional.

Rafael Zaldivar wants Bessman Okafor dead for killing his son Alex Zaldivar. In 2015 he heard the sentence he'd been hoping for, death. But a few days ago, Rafael met with the prosecutor in the case. He says, he told him, they'll have to do the death penalty phase of the trial again.

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An Orlando man who in 2015 was convicted of murder for shooting a would-be witness execution-style is expected to appeal his death sentence Wednesday in front of the Florida Supreme Court.

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A jury in 2015 voted 11-1 to sentence Okafor to death for the murder of 19-year-old Alex Zaldivar. But in January 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Florida’s death-penalty statute was unconstitutional because accepting non-unanimous jury votes gave too much power to judges, not juries. Okafor — and every other defendant sentenced to death without a unanimous jury since 2002 — is now entitled to new sentencing proceedings.

Okafor’s attorney, Dean Mosley, said it would take about a year to finalize preparations for the case to go to trial, barring additional delays. The case is anticipated to go to trial in November 2018.

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Okafor’s defense attorney filed a motion Monday arguing State Attorney Brad King — that Ocala-based state attorney whose office is prosecuting the case — should be removed from it. King also lead’s the state’s Judicial Administrative Commission, the board that funds the defense of some people facing the death penalty who cannot afford their own attorneys.

“To have Brad King sit on a board that approves or denies funding to a death penalty defendant is inherently a serious conflict,” Mosley wrote. “The interest are in direct opposition of each other. He would also know or be in a position to glean from funding request the defense strategies of a defendant, which would be in violation of a defendant’s attorney client privilege.”

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