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| Juan Carlos Chavez |
STARKE — Juan Carlos Chavez, the South Miami-Dade sex predator who kidnapped, raped and killed 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce in an infamous 1995 murder, was executed Wednesday night.
Officials at Florida State Prison pronounced him dead at 8:17 p.m. on a damp, chilly evening in North Florida.
Earlier in the day, Chavez’s only visitor was a “spiritual adviser.” His
demeanor during the day was calm, a Florida corrections spokeswoman
told reporters. His last meal included a ribeye steak, French fries, a
fruit cup and strawberry ice cream, washed down with mango juice.
In a letter penned in the hours before his execution on Wednesday night,
Chavez made no apologies to the family he tore apart. Nor did he claim any
innocence.
Instead Chavez left behind a religious, rambling text wishing God's love on
those who "in their pain desire my death."
"No word or man will rob me of my peace today," Chavez wrote.
Chavez's statement did nothing to dull the pain of the young victim's family.
The notoriety of the case drew an
unusually large media contingent. About two dozen news reporters,
photographers and TV satellite trucks gathered under drizzling gray
skies in a sprawling field across from the Florida State Prison.
Chavez, who spent nearly 16 years on Death Row, was the 12th inmate put to death in Florida since the start of 2012.
The execution came after a tense delay of more than an hour as the U.S.
Supreme Court considered, but ultimately denied, a last-minute request
for a stay.
"It’s closure. Justice has been served for an evil man," Pat Diaz, the retired Miami-Dade police detective who lead the investigation into Jimmy's murder, told the Miami Herald minutes after the execution.
The murder of the Redland boy, who disappeared from his school bus stop near his home, shook South Florida’s sense of security and spurred legislation allowing the state to indefinitely detain sexual predators.
Don Ryce, Jimmy’s 70-year-old father, attended the execution of his son’s killer and planned to speak afterward. The boy’s mother, Claudine, died of a heart attack at age 66 in 2009.
The disappearance of Jimmy — a bright kid with a passion for baseball and chess — on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 1995, shook South Florida’s sense of security and became a national story.
Jimmy vanished after he exited a school bus a few blocks from his home in the Redland, a rural area with farms, ranches, and large residential properties.
Then, on Dec. 6, the owner of a horse farm near the Ryce’s home grew suspicious that a handyman living on her property had stolen a gun and some jewelry. Susan Scheinhaus and her son, Eddie, entered the farmhand’s trailer and found her belongings. They also discovered a brown Jansport knapsack with a suede bottom that fit the description of the book bag that belonged to Jimmy. It also contained his school books and papers.
Scheinhaus notified the FBI and Miami-Dade police, and they obtained a warrant to search the trailer for the backpack.
Investigators also began interrogating the farmhand, Chavez, who had fled Cuba aboard a raft and worked as a mechanic in Hialeah before he was hired by the Scheinhaus family. Police questioned him for more than 50 hours.
Chavez told Miami-Dade homicide investigators that he grabbed Jimmy at gunpoint as he exited the school bus, put him in his pickup truck and took him to his trailer, where he raped him, according to the confession. When Jimmy tried to escape from his camper, Chavez shot him in the back, decapitated him, and dismembered his body, hiding the parts in concrete in three plastic planters buried in an avocado grove on the Scheinhaus’ horse farm.
His defense lawyer, Art Koch, argued the confession was impermissible because it was coerced and involuntary, saying that detectives tricked him into waiving his right to remain silent.
But Chavez’s eventual confession — coupled with the discovery of the boy’s knapsack, the murder weapon, and the bullet that killed him — was permitted as evidence and clinched the case.
After six-and-a-half hours of deliberations, the 12-person jury convicted Chavez of kidnapping, rape, and murder. The following month, jurors unanimously recommended the death penalty, which was imposed by Schumacher that November.
Chavez becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Florida
and the 83rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1979. Only
Texas (510), Oklahoma and Virginia (both with 110) have executed more inmates
than Florida since the death penalty was re-legalized in the USA on July 2,
1976.
Chavez becomes the 8th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA
and the 1367th overall since the nation resumed executions on january 17, 1977.
Sources: Miami Herald, Rick Halperin, Feb. 12, 2014
