Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
He murdered two Waffle House workers. Now he wants mercy.
Gerhard Hojan will die in prison, his lawyer told a Broward jury Wednesday.
Now it’s up to jurors to decide how Hojan will die — of natural causes, or at the hands of the justice system.
Hojan, 43, was once on death row for the murders of waitress Christina Delarosa and cook Willie Absolu, two employees of a Davie Waffle House that Hojan and a friend decided to rob on March 11, 2002.
But changes in the state’s death penalty law gave him a new chance to plead for his life. At 2 p.m., the dozen jurors who had been listening to testimony for three weeks were given the case and the power to decide Hojan’s fate.
Broward Circuit Judge Paul Backman cannot legally order Hojan’s execution without a unanimous jury verdict recommending death.
A split verdict, no matter how lopsided, spares Hojan’s life.
“One person on a jury can decide that a life is worth saving,” defense lawyer H. Dohn Williams said.
Prosecutor Mike Satz spent an hour Wednesday morning detailing why Hojan deserves execution.
The victims of the early morning robbery were marched into the walk-in freezer at the Waffle House, where they fretted about their fate, Satz said. One waitress, Barbara Nunn, told the others she was sure they were going to be killed because they could identify Hojan and his accomplice, Jimmy Mickel.
The second waitress, Delarosa, 18, was terrified. She had a 6-month-old son at home and didn’t know whether she would ever see him again.
The cook, Absolu, 28, tried to stay calm.
After leaving them alone in the cold, dark freezer, Hojan returned and ordered Nunn, Delarosa and Absolu to their knees.
Nunn pleaded with Hojan: “Hey, you don’t have to do this,” she said. “We can work it out.”
Nunn was shot first, in the back of the head. Absolu, according to the evidence presented to the jury, tried to defend himself but was shot in the arm and neck. Finally, Delarosa, her worst fears unfolding in front of her, was shot twice, once in the neck and once in the chest.
“The muzzle was 6 to 18 inches away from her neck when he fired that bullet,” Satz told the jury.
Committing a murder to eliminate witnesses is one aggravating factor that jurors are permitted to consider when deciding whether to recommend death. In shooting the victims, Hojan eliminated two witnesses.
Nunn survived and told jurors about what happened in the freezer.
Hojan’s original co-defendant, Mickel, was acquitted of the murders but is serving five life sentences for robbery and kidnapping.
Williams countered the prosecutor’s presentation Wednesday by giving the jury reasons to show mercy, pointing to Hojan’s troubled childhood, his strained relationship with his now-deceased father, and his ongoing relationship with his autistic son.
Deliberations began around 2 p.m. Jurors requested a readback of the testimony of three witnesses, including Dunn’s, late Wednesday afternoon.
When the jury returns to court Thursday, a court reporter will continue reading back testimony to the jury before deliberations resume.