Victim’s roommate guilty of murder
Killer walled up body inside Hollywood home
Charles Moninger wasn’t protecting himself when he killed his roommate, Julianne Berger, in 2004, a Broward jury determined Wednesday.
He wasn’t just exercising poor judgment when he gagged her, body, put the body in a box, and walled it inside a closet in the Hollywood home they shared for less than a month.
Moninger committed second-degree murder, the jury ruled.
Defense lawyer Arthur Marchetta had tried to convince the jury that Moninger, 57, was justified in the slaying of Berger, 43, because she was enraged when she woke him one January evening in 2004. Prosecutors are not sure when Berger died because of the lengths Moninger went through to cover it up.
Neighbors reported hearing strange, loud noises coming from Berger’s apartment that could have been from Moninger’s construction of a makeshift wall in the victim’s bedroom closet. Berger’s mother, who visited in mid-January looking for her daughter, complained of a strange, powerful odor. Berger’s brother wondered how Moninger could be eating a sandwich with such a stench in the apartment.
It wasn’t until more than two weeks had passed that police found the body. Moninger had since left for Daytona Beach, leaving a note behind for Berger to make it appear that he believed she would return.
Prosecutor Vegina Hawkins said Moninger’s actions made it clear that he believed at the time he had committed a murder, not a justifiable homicide in selfdefense.
Moninger’s own statements to police, which were recorded and played for the jury, undermined his self-defense claim. In the statement, he said Berger had never struck him or threatened physical harm. He also said Berger walked away from him and he followed her into her bedroom, where he fought and killed her with a blunt object.
Moninger was originally tried and convicted him of second-degree murder in 2008. The jury in that case rejected a first-degree murder charge, which would have made a life sentence mandatory. Broward Circuit Judge Alfred Horowitz decided to sentence him to life anyway, though he could have chosen a lesser penalty.
But in 2014, an appeals court ruled that the jury in Moninger’s case had received a faulty instruction that, if corrected, could have led to a conviction on a lesser charge than murder. The conviction was overturned, but Wednesday’s jury confirmed the first jury’s verdict.
Moninger again faces a sentence of 25 years to life in prison when he returns to Broward Circuit Judge Ilona Holmes’ courtroom Friday for sentencing.