Man convicted again for murder of burglary witness
COCOA — Authorities have recovered the bodies of two men who died after their airboat flipped on a Florida river.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission told news outlets that it received a call about 5 p.m. Sunday that a boat had taken on water and was beginning to sink in the St. Johns River, near Lone Cabbage Fish Camp in Cocoa.
Officials say two people made it safely to shore. Officials with Florida Fish and Wildlife and the Brevard County Sheriff's Office recovered the bodies of the two drowned men about 8:30 p.m.
Officials say the drowned men were between the ages of 70 to 80. No names were released.
Eddie Vincent Rutledge again has been found guilty of murdering a man who was ready to testify against him in a home burglary case 10 years ago.
Monday’s verdict was the same outcome as Rutledge’s first trial in 2010, when he was convicted in the Nov. 25, 2007, shooting death of George Mannarino Jr., 45, in Palm Beach Gardens.
Circuit Judge Charles Burton immediately sentenced Rutledge, 34, to life in prison on the first-degree murder with a firearm conviction. He was also sentenced to an extra 30 years for a conspiracy to commit murder charge.
“I didn’t conspire to kill George Mannarino, I didn’t kill George Mannarino, I didn’t wish for him to die,” Rutledge said before receiving his punishment. It matched his previous sentence.
Rutledge won a new trial when an appeals court three years ago found he wasn’t afforded a chance to seek another attorney over a possible conflict of interest claim.
With a different courtappointed lawyer in his corner for the retrial, Rutledge’s defense tried for the past two weeks to raise doubts that he was the person who pulled the trigger of a hunting rifle found near the crime scene.
“This is a circumstantial evidence case,” attorney Chris Haddad said in his closing argument, saying the crime was somewhat reminiscent of the “Who shot J.R.?” mystery from the classic TV drama, “Dallas.”
During the trial, Haddad told jurors the rifle belonged to Kenakil Chuka Gibson, an accomplice of Rutledge in the 2006 burglary witnessed by Mannarino in the gated Oaks East community of Palm Beach Gardens.
Gibson, 32, was also charged in Mannarino’s murder and was convicted at a trial six years ago. He is serving a life sentence.
But Assistant State Attorneys Lauren Godden, Andrew Slater and Emily Walters argued Rutledge’s motive was clear, even though the jurors might find it hard to believe that someone would commit murder to try to get out of a burglary conviction. “Crimes of violence are senseless,” Godden said.
She highlighted “overwhelming” evidence to support a conviction, including Rutledge’s DNA all over the murder weapon, and testimony that Rutledge took the rifle to a West Palm Beach gun range, where a special scope was attached.
Godden also said Rutledge planned the killing for weeks, after unsuccessful attempts to get an alibi for the burglary, and then to hire a hit man to eliminate Mannarino.
During their more than four hours of deliberations, the 10 male and two female jurors asked to listen again to the testimony of a convicted felon who said Rutledge had tried to him for the slaying.
The prosecutor said Rutledge, once he decided to shoot Mannarino, chose to use hollow point bullets in order to inflict the most damage.
“He did not want Mr. Mannarino to survive this,” she said.
The defense said there are no witnesses or other evidence placing Rutledge with the weapon at the shooting, and no proof the rifle was even fired that night.
“DNA is not the [answer] you can always rely on to solve a case,” Haddad said. “And in this case the DNA doesn’t tell you who shot and killed George Mannarino. It tells you that Eddie Rutledge touched the gun at some point previously, and it tells you that his DNA was on the gun, but it doesn’t tell you” who killed the victim.
But prosecutor Slater responded that it’s not at all complicated: “You have [Rutledge’s] DNA all over the instrumentality of death.”
Last week, Rutledge testified in his own defense, telling the jury he wasn’t familiar with rifles, only handguns.
Mannarino, the owner of a pressure washing business, died from a single gunshot wound to the neck.
Prosecutor Godden described the murder as “every citizen’s worst fear” — to become the victim of retaliation for being a witness to a crime. recruit
mjfreeman@ sunsentinel.com, 561-243-6642 or Twitter @marcjfreeman