Anngela Fader Sampler turned 40 this year, but the milestone was bittersweet — it’s now been 30 years since her mother was strangled to death near Lake Worth.
But the sad anniversary comes with a fresh hope for justice for Dana Fader’s loved ones because her alleged killer, Rodney Clark, finally is set to stand trial. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in a case that had gone cold for over two decades.
“We’re ready for some kind of closure,” said Sampler, a southeast Tennessee resident speaking also for her younger brothers, Kolby and Johnny, who were 5 and 3 when they lost their mom. “Whether it’s life in prison, death, just to know he’s going to pay for his crime.”
It’s the first death penalty case to be tried in Palm Beach County since Florida got a new death penalty law in March, and for more than three years before that. Unanimous jury votes are now required to impose a death sentence.
The case against the Mississippi man, 50, didn’t emerge until 2012, and that was six years after detectives reopened the long cold case hoping for a DNA match to evidence collected from the crime scene.
In late 2012, investigators using a national DNA database matched Clark’s DNA — he was by then a convicted sex offender — to a blood and semen stain found on Fader’s dress. Clark also “could not be excluded” from the DNA from the pillowcase, according to a report.
Finally, Clark’s palm print was matched to one taken from the outside right rear window of Fader’s sedan.
Located in Jackson, Miss., Clark told detectives he lived in Palm Beach County in 1987 but denied ever knowing or coming in contact with Fader, having sexual relations with her or being in her car.
Clark was arrested on the murder charge and extradited to South Florida in 2013.
Seven days of jury selection wrapped up Friday afternoon, and opening statements are set for 9 a.m. Monday. Circuit Judge Charles Burton told the panel of a dozen jurors and two alternates to expect the trial to take two weeks.
Before they reach a potential sentencing phase, prosecutors Aleathea McRoberts and Reid Scott first need to obtain a first-degree murder conviction of Clark.
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Source: Sun Sentinel, Marc Freeman, August 18, 2017
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