Should we seek death penalty?

MILLARD K. IVES

Staff Writer

BUSHNELL -- Prosecutors are trying to determine whether to seek the death penalty for a hitchhiker accused of tying up, raping, robbing and stomping to death a Lake Panasoffkee man.

Carl Dausch, 47, will be arraigned Tuesday in the Sumter County courthouse on murder and sexual battery charges in the death of Adrian Renard Mobley.

Assistant State Attorney Peter Magrino said he is studying Dausch's criminal record and other factors in the case -- including the wishes of the victim's family -- before making the decision.

Magrino, who worked on the case of convicted child rapist and killer John Couey, called the Mobley murder a horrendous crime, but stopped short of ranking it among other heinous murders for which he has sought the death penalty.

"On a dark road in the middle of nowhere, I can't imagine how scared the victim was," Magrino said.

On July 15, 1987, Mobley was found on County Road 475, just north of Bushnell -- hog-tied with a blue bedsheet and white T-shirt and beaten to death. An autopsy revealed he had been kicked and stomped -- so hard that a fracture to the nasal bone caused massive swelling in the brain, which was the proximate cause of death.

Mobley's 1981 red Honda Accord also was missing. It later turned up in Whitehouse, Tenn., just north of Nashville. A witness told detectives he saw a white male with blond, shaggy ear-length hair, leave the car there and begin hitchhiking.

Sumter County sheriff's officials didn't know the identity of the hitchhiker. But Lt. Steve Binegar said detectives knew Mobley had a history of picking up blond males.

The murder would go unsolved for 17 years.

Then in 2004, the cold case heated up after cigarette butts retrieved from the car were tested for DNA. That DNA pointed to Dausch, an Indiana prison inmate, serving 60 years on an unrelated rape and battery conviction.

Sheriff's Capt. Gary Brannen said detectives began putting the pieces together:

Dausch was on a trip with family members from Ohio to Florida when an argument ensued, and they left him stranded. Mobley, a local Wal-Mart employee, picked up Dausch. Brannen said they believe Dausch had ulterior motives, wanting to get a ride back to Ohio, any way he could.

Brannen said Mobley wouldn't give him a ride to Ohio or give him the car, and Dausch got upset.

"What makes the crime so heinous crime is he didn't have to kill him," Brannen said. "He was in a position where he could have just taken the car."

A Sumter County grand jury eventually indicted Dausch for the murder and battery and he was brought back to the Sumter County jail in August to begin court proceedings in the Mobley case. The statue of limitations had run out for any robbery or grand theft charges.

Magrino said he has 45 days from the time Dausch is arraigned Tuesday to make a decision to seek the death penalty, although he could ask for more time.