A Florida man who killed five women at Sebring bank in 2019 just because he felt like it was sentenced on Monday to death.
A jury recommended the death penalty in June in a non-unanimous vote, allowed in Florida because legislators were angry that Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz was not sentenced to death. The new law allows the death penalty if eight jurors vote for it. Nine voted in favor in this case.
Circuit Judge Angela Cowden affirmed the jury’s recommendation at a sentencing hearing that included statements from the families of Zephen Xaver’s victims.
“The heightened sense of premeditation is evidence by his behavior throughout the weeks before these murders. His note in his phone further evidenced his desire to kill. It was clear that he had thought about this moment for a very long time,” said Cowden, according to WFTS.
State Attorney Brian Haas said all five of the families supported the death penalty for Xaver, who texted a girlfriend in another state that he was “dying today” and “taking a few people with me because I’ve always wanted to kill people so I am going to try it and see how it goes,” as CrimeOnline reported. After the murders, apparently having changed his mind about “dying today,” he called 911 and admitted what he’d done.
He’d already killed Cynthia Watson, 65; Marisol Lopez, 55; Ana Piñon-Williams, 38; Debra Cook, 54; and Jessica Montague, 31; and he pleaded guilty to the murders late last year.
“I have no sympathy for him and as I said, I would pull the switch if they would let me,” Michael Cook, Debra Cook’s husband, at the hearing on Monday, WFTS reported.
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[Featured image: FILE – This Jan. 23, 2019, booking photo released by the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office shows Zephen Xaver. Jury selection starts Monday in the penalty trial of 27-year-old Xaver, who pleaded guilty last year to murder. (Highlands County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File)]
