Hammer Time

Back in the news, my exasperating former co-worker Bill:

Ex-Fort Lauderdale librarian William [C.] was all smiles Wednesday as a judge condemned him again to die for the 1997 murder of girlfriend Gloria Gomez.

Broward Circuit Judge Alfred J. Horowitz ruled after reading [C.]'s chilling, handwritten 25-page confession. In it, [C.] repudiated his trial defense that the crime was not premeditated, explaining how he had planned for a month to murder Gomez.

''I am writing this letter to disclose the truth about the murder, and why I believe I should have been sentenced to death,'' [C.] wrote.

Horowitz originally sentenced [C.] to death in 2002.

Last October, in a 5-2 vote, the Florida Supreme Court overturned [C.]'s sentence -- faulting Horowitz for rejecting expert testimony from six witnesses who claimed [C.] was too mentally ill to control himself after Gomez rejected him.

They might have been able to better make their point that he was touchy about rejection had the defense not gotten excluded from testimony the fact that he'd also hammered to death the last girl who told him she needed her space.

The judge reconsidered that testimony, but found it was far outweighed by the cruel nature of the crime. The Supreme Court wrote that [C.] beat Gomez 57 times with two hammers, then stabbed her 87 times. The medical examiner said Gomez was alive throughout 143 of the 144 those wounds.

[C.], with two public defenders, served as his own lawyer Wednesday.

Even with a law degree he still has a fool for a client.

The day the crime was discovered, the first police officer who came in to talk to us was there but a minute, and it was a long time before another came by to give us more info. That meant we had a couple of hours to ponder his question "Does he wear earrings?"

[C.] met Gomez, a native of Colombia, in 1996 while working at the Broward County Library. She stayed with [C.] for a time, but on July 11, 1997, after they split up, he lured her to his Victoria Park apartment by telling her he was dying of cancer.

''Gloria fell for it completely,'' [C.] wrote.

[C.] said he surprised Gomez with a hammer blow from behind as she was going through a closet looking for her dresses. After clubbing her to the floor, he wrote, ``I began slowly and unhurriedly to stab her, beginning at her lower tummy and working my way up.''

[C.] explained to Horowiz he previously excluded ''everything that would indicate a premeditated murder.'' He also told the judge, ``At no time did I ever have a psychotic break from reality.''

He wins an appeal on Death Row, then goes and tells the judge he murdered in cold blood. That was a rather crazy thing to do.

Even though [C.] told Horowitz he deserved to die, he also asked the judge in his letter to ``grant me a life sentence.''

But it didn't seem to matter to [C.] when Horowitz instead ordered him shipped back to Death Row. Walking out of court, [C.] wore a beige jumpsuit, silver chains and a big, toothy grin.

Sadly for me, I was on Bill's crew. When he was a no-show for work that Saturday, that left the burden on me and two little-old-lady co-workers. When they became so worried about him they left work to check his apartment, I was forced to bear the entire workload for our floor. To make matters even worse, the next day he and I were scheduled to be the skeleton crew for our department, with a few, sometimes clueless, outsiders brought in to fill out our complement. I ended up being on the desk all day. Bill's first weekend on the lam had me working my behind off! So when you think of it, I was his victim too.

Posted by floridacracker at May 24, 2007 11:21 PM

   

| TrackBack