A Florida man who killed five women inside a bank in January 2019 by forcing them to lie facedown on the floor as he fatally shot each one was sentenced to death on Monday.
The man, Zephen Xaver, 27, methodically carried out the killings in the lobby of a SunTrust Bank in Sebring, Fla. In text messages to an ex-girlfriend minutes before the killings he wrote that he “always wanted to kill people so I’m going to try it today and see how it goes,” according to court documents.
Brian Haas, a Florida prosecutor, described Mr. Xaver’s actions as systematic. He said that Mr. Xaver had planned the slayings, from getting his driver’s license to obtain the firearm used in the shooting that day to entering the bank only after a male customer left it.
In an interview after the sentencing, Mr. Haas, who had sought the death penalty against Mr. Xaver, called the killings “horrific” and said that the State Attorney’s Office had “worked very hard to secure these sentences.
“He did this because he wanted to find out what it felt like to kill someone, and he planned it,” said Mr. Haas, the state attorney for the 10th Judicial Circuit of Florida.
Jane McNeill, Mr. Xaver’s lawyer, had recommended a sentence of life in prison without parole, citing mitigating factors including mental illness. She declined to comment on Monday and directed inquiries to Howard L. Dimmig II, the public defender of the 10th Judicial Circuit of Florida. Mr. Dimmig did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Xaver pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder in March 2023. A two-week penalty phase trial was held in June this year, in which a jury was selected and, after being presented with the facts of the case and hearing arguments from both sides, recommended the death penalty in a vote of 9 to 3.
After hearing more testimony, Judge Angela Cowden of the 10th Judicial Circuit Court officially handed down the death sentence on Monday in the Highlands County Courthouse in Sebring.
Mr. Xaver “appeared to gulp” as the sentence was read but otherwise showed no emotion, according to The Associated Press.
“May God have mercy on your soul,” Judge Cowden told him.
Under state law, Mr. Xaver’s sentence will automatically be appealed to the Florida Supreme Court.
He moved to Sebring, a city of about 11,500 people, from Indiana in 2018, The A.P. reported. In 2016, he joined the U.S. Army but was discharged after three months, the news agency reported. According to The A.P., a former girlfriend whom Mr. Xaver met while both were patients at a mental hospital told the police he said that joining the military was a “way to kill people and get away with it.”
The A.P. also reported that in 2017 a Michigan woman reported him after he sent her text messages suggesting he might commit “suicide by cop” or take hostages.
Still, Mr. Xaver began training to work as a correctional officer at Avon Park Correctional Institution in Avon Park, Fla., in November 2018. He resigned from that job in January 2019, just weeks before the killings.
On Jan. 23, 2019, the morning Mr. Xaver carried out the attack, he began text messaging an ex-girlfriend about what a great day he was going to have but did not initially explain why, according to the judge’s sentencing order. About 15 minutes before the shooting, he texted his ex-girlfriend, “I’m dying today,” the document said.
“I’m not going out alone I’m taking a few people with me because I’ve always wanted to kill people so I’m going to try it and see how it goes,” Mr. Xaver texted.
He then waited until a male customer had left the bank and then “systematically killed each victim without any pretense or moral justification,” according to the state’s sentencing memorandum. The women cried and asked “why” as he shot each of them, according to the document.
The victims were identified as Cynthia Watson, 65; Marisol Lopez, 55; Ana Maria Williams, 38; Debra Cook, 54; and Jessica Montague, 31. Ms. Watson was a customer, and the other women were employees.
A Florida law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in January 2023 lowered the threshold for imposing the death penalty by allowing juries to recommend capital punishment with an 8-to-4 vote rather than with the previously required unanimous vote.
The change came after a 2022 Florida jury’s decision that the gunman who murdered 17 people in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland be sentenced to life in prison without parole. The jury had voted 9 to 3 in favor of the death penalty in that case, but the judge could not impose it unless every juror had voted in favor.
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