Jury convicts woman of killing ex-husband
Donna Horwitz found guilty second time in 2011 Jupiter shooting.
WEST PALM BEACH — During two separate trials, Radley Horwitz was accused of the most horrific act: killing his 66-year-old father and blaming it on his mother.
He said he felt some relief Tuesday, when a Palm Beach County jury agreed for the second time in four years that Donna Horwitz was the one who fatally shot her ex-husband, Lanny, and tried to pin the murder on him.
“I’ve had enough of what’s left of my good name being dragged through the mud again,” said Radley Horwitz, 43, who now lives in Costa Rica.
But while jury foreman Kenneth Rudin joined 11 other jurors in voting to convict Donna Horwitz, 70, of second-degree murder in Lanny Horwitz’s September 2011 death, Rudin later said he isn’t convinced Radley had nothing to do with pumping nine bullets into Lanny as he showered in the Admirals Cove home the three then shared.
“It was very hard for them to convince me she did it and I do have second thoughts,” Rudin, of Boca Raton, told The Palm Beach Post after the verdict. “Maybe she did do it. But she didn’t act alone.”
Two other jurors, who said they were convinced of Donna’s guilt, also told The Post that they didn’t particularly like Radley, who collected food stamps while living in his father’s multimillion-dollar home. Like Rudin, they said
they wished the evidence had been more clear-cut.
Juror Charles Quandt III said he believed jealousy drove Donna to kill the man she married and divorced twice after she learned he was preparing to take a trip with his close friend and business associate, Francine Tice. But, Quandt said, the proof was frustratingly scant.
“The Jupiter Police Department should have been ashamed of themselves,” the Boynton Beach man said of detectives who testified that they initially investigated Lanny’s death as a suicide. “The police department did a lousy job.”
Why, he asked, was no statement taken from Donna Horwitz’s elderly mother, who lived in a guest house connected to the sprawling home? He also wondered why police didn’t get a statement from Donna.
The answer to the second question is simple: Donna wouldn’t talk. Assistant State Attorneys Reid Scott and Aleathea Roberts were prohibited from telling jurors about Donna’s silence.
Her 2013 conviction on a charge of first-degree murder and life sentence were thrown out last year by the Florida Supreme Court. It ruled that prosecutors violated Horwitz’s constitutional right to remain silent by telling the jury that she refused to talk to Jupiter police.
Juror Michael Calvo said it wasn’t easy for the 12 jurors to reach a unanimous decision. Before leaving Monday after four hours of deliberation, they told Circuit Judge Krista Marx they were deadlocked 6-6. But, Calvo said, the head count was misleading. While emotions were running high, he said jurors had only begun discussing the evidence they had heard during the four-day trial.
Returning Tuesday morning, some jurors said they had changed their minds. But, Rudin said he was adamant that he wouldn’t convict Horwitz of premeditated first-degree murder. After less than two hours of deliberation, all agreed to convict her of a charge of second-degree murder — a crime of passion.
“Do I feel good about it? Absolutely not,” Rudin said. “If I had to go back in the room I would have stuck to my guns.”
As a practical matter, while convicted of a less serious charge, the outcome for Horwitz may not change. She still faces a possible life term when she is sentenced July 14.
The case was difficult because there was little physical evidence linking Horwitz — or anyone else — to the murder. No fingerprints were found on the gun and DNA evidence was inconclusive. While blood covered Lanny, creating huge pools on the bathroom floor, none was found on either Donna or Radley.
Still, all three jurors agreed they didn’t believe a third person committed the murder. In addition to pointing the finger at Radley, defense attorneys Joe Walsh and Grey Tesh suggested Tice, a real estate agent, could have shot Lanny. She was going to pick up Lanny that morning to take a trip to North Carolina.
Working with Lanny to help him sell the heavily mortgaged house, she knew a key was stashed outside, Walsh argued. Further, he said, Tice knew Lanny was killed in the shower before police released the information.
Jurors said they rejected the notion that Tice killed Lanny. But, they said, they were equally dubious about her claims that their relationship was platonic.
“I believed her until she said she didn’t know what a quickie was,” said Quandt. Tice voiced shock when Walsh suggested that a voice mail message she left Lanny, asking him over for “a quickie,” was an invitation for sex.
Overall, the jurors said, the case was simply sad. “They were the most dysfunctional family I’ve ever seen,” Rudin said.
But Lanny’s sisters said it wasn’t always that way. The retrial, they said, opened old wounds. They said they were satisfied a jury had once again convicted Donna.
“It is a very fair and just verdict,” said Pauline Horwitz, who is married to Lanny’s brother. She attended the trial with Lanny’s sister, Shelia Goldberg, and Goldberg’s daughter. “I’m sorry for everyone involved. Everyone,” Pauline said.
Marcia VanCreveld, another sister who couldn’t attend the trial due to health problems, said she is hopeful the woman she called “prima Donna” will serve “a long, long time behind bars.”
VanCreveld added: “My brother died like Caesar, surrounded by his enemies.” She declined to elaborate.
Radley, meanwhile, said he will try to move on. “My father always used to say, ‘It is what it is,’” he said. “I always hated it when he said that and here I am saying it.”