Jurors rejected the death penalty for an ex-social worker's aide, who was convicted of killing his wife and stabbing her children, as well as raping her mentally disabled daughter.
BY DAVID OVALLE
DOVALLE@MIAMIHERALD.COM
A former Miami-Dade County social worker's aide will spend the rest of his life in prison -- and not face the death penalty -- for stabbing his wife 61 times and stabbing her two young children, a jury recommended Thursday.
In a surprise decision, jurors -- after only an hour of deliberations -- rejected a death sentence for Grady Nelson, 53. He was convicted in the grisly January 2005 murder of his wife, Angelina Martinez.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jacqueline Hogan Scola immediately sentenced Nelson to life behind bars.
The same jury, in July, took more than 11 hours to convict Nelson.
Nelson's case drew headlines because the Miami-Dade Human Services Department hired him in 2000 as a social-worker aide, despite his prior conviction for the 1991 rape of a 7-year-old neighbor.
By 2005, Nelson had been having sex with Martinez's 11-year-old mentally disabled daughter. Shortly before the murder, he was briefly jailed for the sexual activity, but prosecutors had to drop the charges because the girl gave inconsistent statements.
A judge signed a domestic violence injunction, but it came too late. Nelson went home after his release from jail. The next morning police found him -- covered in blood -- in the house, wielding a knife.
Martinez was found dead with a knife jammed in her head. The daughter and 9-year-old son were found stabbed but alive. Police charged Nelson with raping both children; he was found guilty of assaulting the girl but not the boy.
During the four-week penalty phase, defense lawyers Terry Lenamon and David S. Markus argued that Nelson was sexually abused as a child, abandoned by his mother and later became addicted to cocaine.
Scola also allowed Lenamon to introduce controversial technology that showed digital images of Nelson's brain damage, purportedly leaving him prone to impulsiveness and violence.
The state objected, and countered with experts who dismissed the technology as junk science.
``It's the future,'' Lenamon said of the technology -- known as QEEG brain mapping -- after the sentencing. ``This is something that is going to make a huge impact around the country on legal issues, and medical issues.''
Prosecutors Abbe Rifkin and Hillah Mendez had argued Nelson should be executed because of the violent nature of the murders and because of his criminal past.
His 1991 victim recounted how Nelson raped her in testimony last month that drew tears from courtroom observers.
``The state believes the aggravators were overwhelming in this case, especially because of the particularly horrendous way in which the victim was killed and the defendant's long history of preying on those weaker than him,'' Rifkin said afterward. ``However, we respect the jury's verdict.''
No comments:
Post a Comment