Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Casey’s Nickelodeon killer gets life
A decision was reached in an hour and a half
A Broward jury showed mercy Wednesday to convicted killer Pablo Ibar, refusing to sentence him to death. Ibar, 47, can be retried if an appeals court overturns his latest conviction, but he can never again face the death penalty for the murders of Casimir Sucharski, Marie Rogers and Sharon Anderson.
A Broward jury showed mercy Wednesday to convicted killer Pablo Ibar, refusing to sentence him to death.
The Casey’s Nickelodeon murders is a notorious case that has lasted decades in the courts: Ibar and his onetime co-defendant were brought before juries a total of five times over the 25 years since the three victims’ bodies were found in a Miramar home in June 1994. The brutal crime was captured on a home surveillance video system.
Ibar, 47, can be retried if an appeals court overturns his latest conviction, but he can never again face the death penalty for the murders of Casimir “Butch Casey” Sucharski, Marie Rogers and Sharon Anderson.
The jury reached its decision shortly before 5 p.m., after deliberating for an hour and a half.
Broward Circuit Judge Dennis Bailey read the jury’s decision to a packed courtroom, meticulously laying out the jury’s findings that Ibar had been previously convicted of a crime and committed the murders while committing another felony.
Ibar’s family members embraced each other after the decision was read. Victims’ family members sat silently on the other side of the room.
Ibar’s eyes reddened once the jury left. His wrists remained shackled.
His father smiled at supporters and the news media.
Ibar’s family presented him to a jury this week as a good man who grew up in a loving family, but Broward prosecutors had turned that against him in a searing plea to put Ibar back on death row for the murders.
Ibar was convicted in 2000 and sentenced to death. The Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2016, setting the stage for a retrial that started last November and ended in January. The same jury that convicted Ibar was tasked with recommending whether he deserves to be executed or sentenced to life in prison.
Assistant State Attorney Katya Palmiotto made the case for the state Wednesday morning, quietly but fervently arguing for capital punishment.
“All of you are eyewitnesses to 22 minutes of a human nightmare,” she said, referring to the surveillance video. “You learned that he [Ibar] had every opportunity in life. He had every advantage — college, sports, the
love and support of his family. What did he do with that?”
He turned to crime, she answered, a life of robberies and burglaries that culminated in the triple homicide. “He is here today because of his actions, his choices and what he did,” Palmiotto said. “His family did not put him here. Don’t lose sight of why we are here today.”
Palmiotto went on to show the jury the man she called “the real Pablo Ibar,” the killer seen on the video almost nonchalantly pulling out his gun and shooting the three victims. She showed close-up photographs of the bullet wounds.
“I’m showing you this because you can’t see it in the video,” Palmiotto said.
The victims’ family members sat stoically in the front row. Ibar’s concerned family sat on the other side of the courtroom, still maintaining that the man in the video is not Ibar.
Ibar’s defense lawyer used letters written by family members of the victims to ask a Broward jury to show mercy by voting for a life sentence.
Defense lawyer Kevin Kulik cited letters written by Sucharski’s daughter, Alexis; Anderson’s sister, Deborah Bowie; and Rogers’ mother and brother, Margaret and Kareem.
Each of the letters talked about the pain of losing a loved one to violence, though they did not state any preference for what recommendation the jury should make.
“My father did not deserve to have his life end this way,” Alexis Sucharski wrote in the excerpt read by Kulik.
Ordering Ibar’s execution 25 years after the crime would have continued the cycle of violence and brought justice to no one, Kulik said. “Life without parole is not the most merciful sentence anybody can get, but it is a step in the right direction,” he said.
Recalling the testimony of Ibar’s wife, Tanya, and father, retired Jai Alai player Candido Ibar, Kulik described the defendant as someone who provides love, support and advice to his family in every way that he can, even from the confines of jail and prison cells.
The jury’s recommendation made Bailey’s sentencing decision for him — a life sentence is mandatory in first-degree murder cases. Had the jury opted for death, Bailey would have been the only one with the authority to overrule the recommendation.
Seth Penalver, Ibar’s onetime co-defendant, was acquitted of the murders in 2012. Like Ibar, he had previously been convicted and sentenced to death only to have the Florida Supreme Court grant him a retrial.