Laurin Sellers and John Kennedy
Sentinel Staff Writers
July 19, 2007
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist ended a seven-month moratorium on lethal injections Wednesday, signing a death warrant for a convicted sex offender who kidnapped, raped and strangled an 11-year-old Cocoa boy in 1991.
Mark Dean Schwab, 38, was chosen to be the first killer executed since the death-penalty moratorium was lifted "because of the horrific nature of the case," said Erin Isaac, a spokeswoman for Crist.
"It lends itself to being the first," she said.
The parents of the victim, Junny Rios-Martinez, received the news they had waited for years to hear when the Governor's Office contacted them about noon.
"I'm ecstatic," said the boy's mother, Vicki Rios-Martinez. "We'll finally be able to close that horrible chapter."
Seminole-Brevard State Attorney Norm Wolfinger, whose office prosecuted Schwab, agreed it was the "perfect case" to lift the suspension that was imposed after a botched execution last year.
"If we are going to have a death penalty, Mark Dean Schwab should be the recipient of that penalty," Wolfinger said. "This was an atrocious, horrendous murder that victimized the entire community."
Schwab is scheduled to die at 6 p.m. Nov. 15.
In signing his first death warrant, Crist said he is confident lethal injections can continue in line with constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment.
The death penalty was suspended in Florida on Dec. 15 by then-Gov. Jeb Bush after a medical examiner said prison officials failed to properly insert intravenous needles into the arms of convicted killer Angel Nieves Diaz.
Diaz, who was condemned for killing the manager of a Miami club, took 34 minutes to die -- twice as long as usual -- and required double the conventional dosage.
Along with temporarily halting executions, Bush created a commission that examined the process. The commission made 37 recommendations to improve it.
More corrections-staff training, enhanced monitoring of the condemned inmate and an expanded death chamber at Florida State Prison in Starke are among changes adopted by the state.
Schwab, a convicted child molester, began stalking Junny in 1991 after seeing his picture in a newspaper. Schwab had recently been released from prison after serving less than half of an eight-year sentence.
He befriended the family by posing as a reporter interested in writing stories about the popular fifth-grader and avid surfer.
On April 18, 1991, a caller identifying himself as Junny's father asked officials at Clearlake Middle School to tell the boy to meet him at a nearby ball field instead of riding home on the bus.
His disappearance wasn't discovered until Junny's parents met later at a baseball game. Each had assumed the boy was with the other.
While police searched for their son, Vicki and Junny Rios-Martinez clung to one shred of hope: After his previous assault on a 13-year-old, Schwab had let that boy go.
Three days after Junny's disappearance, police tracked Schwab to Ohio and arrested him in a phone booth as he talked to his aunt. Two days later, he led officers to a black footlocker half hidden by a palmetto thicket in the Canaveral Groves area north of Cocoa.
The boy's body was stuffed inside.
"The entire community had been waiting, and it was a tremendously sad ending finding his body that rainy night," Wolfinger recalled Wednesday.
Outrage over the murder and Schwab's early release from prison led to the Junny Rios-Martinez Act, which keeps sex offenders behind bars longer.
In his 1992 trial, Schwab confessed to kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering Junny, but claimed a mysterious man named Donald forced him to do it.
Earlier this year, Schwab's attorney argued that he is a "scientific mystery" who should be kept alive so he can be studied to prevent other pedophiles from raping and killing children.
On Wednesday, Wolfinger said he deserves to die.
"Schwab is nothing but a coldblooded murderer," he said. "The governor chose wisely. He picked the right case."
Laurin Sellers can be reached at lsellers@orlandosentinel.com or 321-795-3251. John Kennedy can be reached at jkennedy@orlandosentinel.com or 850-222-5564.
Sentinel Staff Writers
July 19, 2007
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist ended a seven-month moratorium on lethal injections Wednesday, signing a death warrant for a convicted sex offender who kidnapped, raped and strangled an 11-year-old Cocoa boy in 1991.
Mark Dean Schwab, 38, was chosen to be the first killer executed since the death-penalty moratorium was lifted "because of the horrific nature of the case," said Erin Isaac, a spokeswoman for Crist.
"It lends itself to being the first," she said.
The parents of the victim, Junny Rios-Martinez, received the news they had waited for years to hear when the Governor's Office contacted them about noon.
"I'm ecstatic," said the boy's mother, Vicki Rios-Martinez. "We'll finally be able to close that horrible chapter."
Seminole-Brevard State Attorney Norm Wolfinger, whose office prosecuted Schwab, agreed it was the "perfect case" to lift the suspension that was imposed after a botched execution last year.
"If we are going to have a death penalty, Mark Dean Schwab should be the recipient of that penalty," Wolfinger said. "This was an atrocious, horrendous murder that victimized the entire community."
Schwab is scheduled to die at 6 p.m. Nov. 15.
In signing his first death warrant, Crist said he is confident lethal injections can continue in line with constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment.
The death penalty was suspended in Florida on Dec. 15 by then-Gov. Jeb Bush after a medical examiner said prison officials failed to properly insert intravenous needles into the arms of convicted killer Angel Nieves Diaz.
Diaz, who was condemned for killing the manager of a Miami club, took 34 minutes to die -- twice as long as usual -- and required double the conventional dosage.
Along with temporarily halting executions, Bush created a commission that examined the process. The commission made 37 recommendations to improve it.
More corrections-staff training, enhanced monitoring of the condemned inmate and an expanded death chamber at Florida State Prison in Starke are among changes adopted by the state.
Schwab, a convicted child molester, began stalking Junny in 1991 after seeing his picture in a newspaper. Schwab had recently been released from prison after serving less than half of an eight-year sentence.
He befriended the family by posing as a reporter interested in writing stories about the popular fifth-grader and avid surfer.
On April 18, 1991, a caller identifying himself as Junny's father asked officials at Clearlake Middle School to tell the boy to meet him at a nearby ball field instead of riding home on the bus.
His disappearance wasn't discovered until Junny's parents met later at a baseball game. Each had assumed the boy was with the other.
While police searched for their son, Vicki and Junny Rios-Martinez clung to one shred of hope: After his previous assault on a 13-year-old, Schwab had let that boy go.
Three days after Junny's disappearance, police tracked Schwab to Ohio and arrested him in a phone booth as he talked to his aunt. Two days later, he led officers to a black footlocker half hidden by a palmetto thicket in the Canaveral Groves area north of Cocoa.
The boy's body was stuffed inside.
"The entire community had been waiting, and it was a tremendously sad ending finding his body that rainy night," Wolfinger recalled Wednesday.
Outrage over the murder and Schwab's early release from prison led to the Junny Rios-Martinez Act, which keeps sex offenders behind bars longer.
In his 1992 trial, Schwab confessed to kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering Junny, but claimed a mysterious man named Donald forced him to do it.
Earlier this year, Schwab's attorney argued that he is a "scientific mystery" who should be kept alive so he can be studied to prevent other pedophiles from raping and killing children.
On Wednesday, Wolfinger said he deserves to die.
"Schwab is nothing but a coldblooded murderer," he said. "The governor chose wisely. He picked the right case."
Laurin Sellers can be reached at lsellers@orlandosentinel.com or 321-795-3251. John Kennedy can be reached at jkennedy@orlandosentinel.com or 850-222-5564.
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