Jury hears family of murdered mom speak of loss
Angela Fader Sampler took her seat on the witness stand about 25 feet from Rodney Clark, the Mississippi man convicted last week of murdering her mom nearly three decades ago.
Speaking to the jury that will decide whether Clark should receive a death sentence, Sampler on Wednesday said the killing caused her to doubt her religion. She was 10, and her younger brothers were 5 and 3 when their mother Dana Fader was strangled to death near Lake Worth.
“It caused me to question my faith in God,” said the 40-year-old Chattanooga, Tenn., woman. “I blamed God, ‘Why did you take her?’ ”
Clark, 50, is asking the jury to save him, after convicting him based on DNA evidence that was linked to the disabled Mississippi man nearly five years ago.
“Is Rodney Clark so beyond redemption that he should die for this crime?” asked his lawyer, Public Defender Carey Haughwout.
“We stood before you and we argued Rodney’s innocence and now we stand before you and argue for his life,” she said in her opening statement to the jury.
The answer — a sentence of death or life in prison — will be delayed. Hurricane Irma is forcing the closure of the Palm Beach County Courthouse on Thursday and Friday, and witnesses are still lined up to testify on Clark’s behalf.
Circuit Judge Charles Burton directed the jurors to plan on returning to his courtroom on Sept. 13 and Sept. 14, assuming the building has reopened.
Under Florida’s new death