00:00:33
All right, we're
back on the record, "State of Florida
versus Pablo Ibar," case number 93413062-CF-10b.
00:00:40
Mr. Ibar is present
with counsel. State's present. For obvious, reasons no
matter what the verdicts are,
00:00:45
somebody is going
to be very unhappy. Somebody is going
to be very happy. You have a right to be
present during any kind
00:00:51
of court proceeding unless
you disrupt the proceedings. So if anybody cheers, or
claps, or jeers, or hisses,
00:00:58
or makes any noise, or
reacts physically in any way to the verdicts,
you'll be immediately
00:01:03
escorted out of the courtroom. State ready? - Yes, sir.
- Defense ready? Yes, sir.
00:01:20
All right, the verdicts
are in legal order. The verdicts read as follows. In the Circuit Court of
the 17th Judicial Circuit
00:01:25
in and for Broward County,
Florida, Judge Dennis D. Bailey State of Florida plaintiff
versus Pablo Manuel Ibar
00:01:30
defendant, verdict count one. We the jury, finds as
follows as to count one-- BUTCH CASEY (ON PHONE): Hello.
00:02:11
You have now reached
the Casey residence. I'm not home
presently, but I shall return very, very shortly.
00:02:18
CANDY (ON PHONE): Hello, hello. This is Candy. Are you there? I need to speak to you.
00:02:25
Bye. SHERRY (ON PHONE): Hey, Butch. This is Sherry. How you guys doing? Look, I have some good
news for you too, Butch.
00:02:36
Privately. Oh, my. [giggles] [dialing] PETER (ON PHONE): Mr.
Butch, this is Peter.
00:02:47
Are you awake, señor? OK, I guess you're not awake. If you wake up within
the next 5, 10 minutes,
00:02:53
please give me a
call at the club. Thank you. Butch, Butch, Butch. Pick it up. You're not going to answer?
00:03:02
Give me a call. Hey, come on back. OK, bye. BRYAN (ON PHONE): Hello, daddy. Daddy, please pick up the phone.
00:03:12
[sighs] Hello, hello? [beeping] He was known as Butch
Casey to his friends. Around 2:30 this morning,
Casimir Sucharski
00:03:27
was found murdered
in his Miramar home along with two other people,
Marie Rogers of Hollywood
00:03:32
and Sharon Anderson of Miami. Police are saying
little about what they found inside the
house except there
00:03:37
was a lot of blood. They won't say how the
victims were murdered or whether there are
signs of forced entry.
00:03:43
I've known him about 13 years. 13 years. And I've known him to be
a super really nice guy.
00:03:49
And I know he has a lot
of parties and friends and stuff like that, but I
don't understand why this--
00:03:54
something like this would happen
to a nice person like that. [thunder rumbles] JOHN HOLLAND: I just joined
the newspaper a few months
00:04:08
before the murders. It was just a whole
different world back then. There were a lot of
murders in Florida.
00:04:19
All the way through, this is
not how normal murder cases-- the drugs, the sex, it
was part of the story.
00:04:26
And I think everyone
got caught up on it. I think some of my stories,
looking back on them,
00:04:30
may have been a
little too explicit. The death notifications to
the victims' parents or family,
00:04:58
after learning that their
loved one had passed away, was killed violently, that's
the hardest part of my job.
00:05:17
I would like to think
I investigate cases very objectively as
a police officer. The evidence took me where it
took me, and I followed that.
00:05:30
And things were moved. This was very unusual for me. I've been assigned
other homicides where
00:05:37
it may have been two
or three victims, but it was more drug-related. Really didn't know of a motive
at this particular point.
00:05:45
This was more senseless,
why this even happened. It was an execution. Possibly money, drugs,
something specific that they
00:06:11
may have been looking for. There was a safe in his closet
in his bedroom that was opened,
00:06:17
and things were moved. His black Mercedes was
not there when we arrived. Obviously, somebody
had taken his car.
00:06:27
And then later on that day, we
learned a black Mercedes that was burnt out in the field.
00:06:36
But were things on
scene, like his necklace was gold, rings and stuff
like the ladies were
00:06:42
wearing that they didn't take. So again, it may
not been jewelry or gold or anything like that.
00:06:57
It was a long, grueling,
complicated case. But it's a job. It's a job that I've been
doing for over three decades
00:07:08
My name is Chuck Morton. I worked full time for the
Broward state attorney's office
00:07:13
for 36.5 years. No cost is too much for
murders of this magnitude. When three people are brutally
and viciously, cold bloodedly
00:07:30
executed and murdered and
killed the way these three people were, we
have an obligation
00:07:35
to do whatever we can
and spend whatever we can to bring to
justice the people that
00:07:40
commit these kinds of crimes. Mr. Sucharski was
a very security conscious person mainly
because of the type of business
00:07:50
he was in. Being in the bar business,
being a rather flashy individual with a lot of jewelry, known
to carry a lot of money,
00:07:59
had access to a lot
of material things. Sucharski carried guns. He used drugs openly.
00:08:07
He had safes in his
house that were full of drugs and money and guns
when the police came in
00:08:13
and found the bodies. He was convicted of
several drug cases. In fact, was not permitted
to own a nightclub
00:08:29
because of these convictions. Casey's Nickelodeon
we found out was in the name of someone else.
00:08:48
This photo of Sucharski
was taken in 1987 when he was arrested
by police on a charge
00:08:53
of aggravated battery. He was best known as
the owner of Casey's Nickelodeon, a
popular restaurant
00:08:59
and bar on Hallandale
Beach Boulevard. It was, however, closed
down by police for a time
00:09:04
in 1983 because
of drug activity. Tonight, it's closed again,
shut down earlier in the day
00:09:10
when news of his murder
reached his employees. You know, it's a
very popular club
00:09:21
because it was one of those that
stayed open later than usual. I've been to his club
before, once or twice.
00:09:31
But I didn't know
him personally. It was the "it" place to
be for a certain segment
00:09:40
of the society. There'd be police
officers and judges. Everyone was going to
his club, and everyone
00:09:46
knew what his club was. Sucharski seemed like
he would have been an interesting guy to know.
00:10:14
I was probably
around 14 or 15, and I expressed to my mother. I asked her if I
could meet my father.
00:10:30
She began to understand how
important it was for me to meet him and understand who he is.
00:10:38
And when I did go down there,
he said, oh, you must be Bryan. I said, yeah. And we shook hands.
00:10:48
It was just the first moment. I remember these phone calls
at 6:30 in the morning.
00:10:59
He would just be
closing the bar up. So I'd get a phone call,
and he'd be like, hey,
00:11:03
it's your old man. What are you--
what are you doing? We got a sense
that something bad
00:11:56
was going to happen to Casey. He expressed that on
telephone conversations with his son, Bryan.
00:12:03
But we just didn't
know what it was. I mean, I can't tell you
what was in his head,
00:12:06
what he was trying
to convey as far as what was going to happen. Here's the
transcript right here.
00:12:32
He didn't sound quite right. I mean, he sounded
stressed, kind of upset. You know, right at that time
I didn't think about it.
00:12:42
I didn't really drill into
it any further, but sure. He's asking for help probably
in a couple of different ways.
00:13:28
Every phone call he
made had been recorded. That gave police real
access into how he operated,
00:13:34
what was going on in his
mind, what he thought, how he talked about himself. It gave him an idea
of his personality.
00:13:40
[dial tone] Sucharski didn't
deserve to get murdered, but at least he ran
in those circles.
00:14:40
These women just went
to his house that night. They didn't do anything,
and all of a sudden
00:14:45
they're tied up and murdered. I have had to spend
23 years reconciling my rational mind to my heart.
00:15:11
There was so much pain. Hi, my name is
Sharon Anderson. You have a wonderful day when
you work out in the morning.
00:15:25
You have a lot more energy. SHARON ANDERSON: I was really
very close to my sister
00:15:30
because we were only
11 months apart. But we were-- I don't think there was
a day that went by that I
00:15:35
did not talk to my sister. So when I got pregnant, I told
her before I told my husband.
00:15:43
That's how close we were. (SINGING) Happy
birthday, dear Sharon. SHARON ANDERSON: My
mom called that Sunday.
00:15:52
I remember I immediately got
irritated because I thought, please don't call me in my
ninth month of pregnancy
00:15:57
with the story about, you
know, Sharon didn't call you. And maybe about 9:00 or 10:00
that night we both agreed just
00:16:03
call the police, right. Something's not right. In the meantime, mom
tracked down Marie's mother,
00:16:13
and Marie's mother
said I thought that Marie was with Sharon. That's when everything changed.
00:16:21
But the next morning, we
go to my husband's store, and I was sitting in the
car, and his cell phone rang.
00:16:30
And all he was saying
is yes, no, OK, yes, no. One word answers. So he hung up, and I said--
00:16:40
I don't know why, but
I said, just tell me. Is she dead? So we went to the hospital.
00:16:58
I had just toured that maternity
unit two weeks before that. I didn't think it was
going to be like that.
00:17:07
So I knew nothing. I didn't know who was with her. We knew nothing. I later found out
that Marie was dead,
00:17:16
and some guy named Butch Casey. Name I never heard. So all I kept thinking,
is who would kill her?
00:17:44
Broward County Crime scene
technician Bob Surratt, while he was doing
his investigation,
00:17:50
he went through all the rooms
is when he saw the videotapes and said, I think you
need to come see this.
00:17:59
You don't even know it works. That's what I
said, play it back. Give me that thing.
00:18:04
Eject that thing. OK. WOMAN: [laughs] Now, I
tell you people, whoever's going to watch this,
should this man
00:18:29
be institutionalized or what? JOHN HOLLAND: Hundreds
of hours of videotapes, and he taped his own house.
00:18:38
He taped the inside
of his house. He taped his bedroom. He taped his sex acts
with his girlfriend.
00:18:43
In fact, the police noted
that in 400 hours of videotape that they examined, it
was difficult to find
00:18:50
Sucharski with clothes on. And then they found something
that changed the entire case.
00:18:58
PAUL MANZELLA: Bob Surratt,
he was observing the, I think it was the south
wall book shelving and stuff
00:19:05
and saw a video. Not a video but a VHS recorder,
and he followed the line up, and lo and behold, placed
up on top about eight feet
00:19:14
next to the ceiling
was the camera. ANNOUNCER: This is
7 News at 10:00. Hello again, everybody.
00:20:11
We have a very serious
warning for you tonight. The video that we're about to
share with you which we've just
00:20:15
received is extremely graphic. They showed me the
tape, the whole video, all 27 plus minutes.
00:21:23
Everything about that
was completely normal until these guys enter,
and then it's just hell.
00:21:33
What kind of person kills
three people for no reason in cold blood and
walks out like they'd
00:21:44
just turned off a light switch? Watch the video. They made sure they killed
everybody in that house.
00:21:56
So I got to watch
two men blow a hole through the back of her
head, and it was not instant.
00:22:06
She suffered. Well, the most important
evidence in the case is the videotape of the murder.
00:22:51
You see what appeared
to be a set of lights, vehicle lights flash
on a mirrored wall
00:22:58
that he had in the living room. About 20 seconds later,
you see the entry of two men, one
wearing dark clothing,
00:23:06
one wearing light clothing. They both enter. One has a hat and glasses on. The other one has a t-shirt
wrapped around his head.
00:23:14
Sharon Anderson gets up and
runs into the bedroom, which was Casey's bedroom Casey's
then struck with the firearm
00:23:22
and falls to the ground. Marie Rogers is then
pushed off her chair, and she lies still on the floor.
00:23:28
There appears to be a question
and answer period going on between Casey and the
subject with the firearm,
00:23:34
like he's being
interrogated for answers. And every time he
gives the wrong answer,
00:23:41
he's hit over the head. And that was done multiple
times in the beginning. I had two people on video.
00:23:51
They weren't on video. I was faced with the fact that
I had two subjects on a video
00:23:57
that I needed to identify. Those were the perpetrators who
committed the crime of murder.
00:24:10
And 38, 20. Ooh, what was that? You have a circular drive. You just had a small patch
of grass and stuff inside.
00:24:25
And the back yard is where the
BSO deputy had gone and looked inside the back windows, and
that's where he saw them laying
00:24:31
down in the living room area. What I can gather
from the video, that they came in
from the right side
00:24:41
because you see on the video
it comes from this way. And I don't know if this
gate or anything was the same
00:24:51
or if it's changed or not,
but they would have probably have come in through here.
00:25:03
Around the side, and then
here's where the sliding glass, sliding glass door would be.
00:25:12
This door I believe
at the time was open. And of course they
were unaware that there
00:25:19
was cameras in the house. Of course, it wasn't
very visible to anyone until we found it
only because we
00:25:25
started moving things around. And we thought at
this particular time the best thing we'd do is
to take a still photograph
00:25:34
off the video, put it on
flyers, and distribute them to local law enforcement
to see whether or not
00:25:40
these guys had a history. No one knew at that time,
even with the stills, where those pictures came from.
00:26:00
And that was the
hardest part was putting that name to those images. So we just continued to work
the leads that were coming
00:26:07
in from the general public, law
enforcement leads that may have had similar instances
that had occurred
00:26:15
that suspects in that case. Well basically I
saw two guys leave the house early in the morning.
00:28:32
I didn't get a good
look at one of them. He kind of turned away from me. But the other guy, I
got a good look at him
00:28:38
when he was getting
in the car and when we were driving away from him. Mr. Foy came to the police
and said, this is what I saw.
00:28:53
I saw two young men in
his car leaving his house in the early morning
hours, and that
00:28:58
happened to be very consistent
with what the video saw. There's no way he could have
known that unless he saw it.
00:29:06
One guy, the driver, he
tried not to look at me. I didn't get too
good a look at him,
00:29:09
but the passenger,
he looked hard at me, and I got a good look at him. Yeah, he described
the passenger who he saw
00:29:19
much better than the driver. He described him
as a male, medium build, short crewcut
type hair, shaved
00:29:26
around the sides and the back. And he believed he was
wearing a white shirt and had a scruffy face.
00:29:35
I remember Gary Foy telling
me that when he turned left onto Pembroke Road to go
west, the Mercedes continued
00:29:42
to go north on 64th Avenue. So this may be the
same route they took. That's where Gary Foy left them
was at 64th and Pembroke Road.
00:29:54
And then he didn't
see them after that. [gunshots] We get a telephone call
from Detective Sherman
00:32:47
of the Miami-Dade County
Homicide division saying that, I think we have our guy.
00:33:13
Gotcha. SHARON ANDERSON (VOICEOVER):
From Manzella's standpoint, this was a huge development.
00:33:25
Not only did he have a man who
looked a lot like the person in his flyers, he had a
crime that looked a lot
00:33:31
like his murders in Miramar. And Pablo Ibar, being an
organization that was involved
00:33:37
in doing home invasions, there
was a shootout with police on that particular scene.
00:33:43
He had shot and killed the dog. To me, attitude
and demeanor wasn't that of a squeaky clean kid.
00:33:56
A lot of the conversation
initially was an alibi. Where were you on
such and such a date?
00:34:02
Specifically June 26, 1994. Who were you with? What were you doing? I then presented
him a photograph
00:34:11
that was taken from the scene. That was an excerpt of the
video, a still photograph.
00:34:16
And I presented it to him,
and I showed it to him. I says, Pablo, how
did I get this?
00:34:21
And I showed him the photograph. And if actions could speak
more than words, at that point,
00:34:27
he pushes himself
away from the table and just puts his head down. And at that point, he didn't
want to talk to me anymore.
00:34:35
Pablo Ibar. You have no funds to pay
court costs, do you, sir? No. Is your public defender
representing you?
00:34:52
So he's being held on a
no bond capital offense. We have asked the court not
to disclose it to the public
00:35:02
or have the clerk's office
to disclose it to the public because it's still an
ongoing investigation.
00:35:07
There may be others involved. There are witnesses
perhaps whose names appear in an affidavit
whose lives could
00:35:13
be jeopardized as a
result of disclosing that affidavit at this time. Since it is a continuing
investigation,
00:35:19
I would ask the court
not to rule on that. ANNOUNCER: This is
7 News at 10:00. Police insist that
this is the gunman,
00:35:29
22-year-old Pablo Manuel Ibar. I always looked
up to my brother, very much wanted to be like him.
00:37:44
I just-- I love my
brother to death. I always do. When he first was arrested,
I couldn't believe it.
00:37:57
I was living with my father in
Connecticut playing highlight, and I was down at that time
for vacation for two weeks
00:38:06
to visit with my
mother and, [spanish].. I was with him every
day, every other day.
00:38:12
I couldn't believe then out
of the blue, the next one of the days he's arrested.
00:38:16
It was very shocking. You never think at
times that that's going to be the last
time that you three are
00:38:24
together on a trip
like that, that that will never happen again. JOHN HOLLAND: In
Manzella's eyes,
00:38:38
he was starting
to solve his case. Manzella then had to
make his case stronger. The first thing he did was
take photos and show it
00:38:45
to the only eyewitness
he thought he had, Sucharski's neighbor, Gary Foy. Which numbers
did you eliminate?
00:39:44
PAUL MANZELLA: As they
were being escorted from the library down
the hall into the room,
00:39:48
Gary Foy taps me
on the shoulder. That's him, that's him,
and pointed Pablo Ibar out.
00:39:56
There's one positive
identification of a shoe print. It was a property
of Francisco Rincon,
00:40:02
and it was a left shoe
of submitted footwear, has the outer sole design
consistent with the impression
00:40:09
noted in number one above
and could have been the foot board that made the impression.
00:40:14
That had sole prints that
were almost identical or very similar to the sole
prints that were left
00:40:20
in blood at the crime scene. And those shoe sizes
were the same size shoes that Pablo Ibar wears.
00:40:51
The one with the unique
basketball player on it. See, here's the hands. Here's the basketball player.
00:41:13
JOHN HOLLAND: He found a
t-shirt that was collected into evidence, and
it was possibly used
00:41:19
as head cover for Pablo Ibar. The t-shirt was on the front
stoop area over by the front
00:41:31
door, and that was something
that we've collected because apparently
Pablo Ibar had
00:41:37
wrapped his head in a
t-shirt when first entering. And then after all the
bodies were on the floor
00:41:45
and were shot, Pablo
removed that as he was coming out the door here. So but that was left behind,
and we did recover that.
00:41:57
The shirt itself had like some
kind of an electric company logo on it that it
turned out the mother has
00:42:04
either worked for
them, was friends with them, familiar with them. But there was a connection
between the mother
00:42:09
and that electrical
company of the shirt that we found at the
front of the door.
00:42:14
So again, it's another piece
of the puzzle that would you lean towards Pablo Ibar.
00:42:33
I think it's this house
right here, the corner house. Right. That corner house
right there, 6391.
00:43:08
All of the people living
at the Lee Street address had criminal pasts for drugs,
narcotics, weapons violations.
00:43:20
They like to live a life
of ladies and late nights and having nice
cars or fast cars.
00:43:28
And in South Florida, that
means having a weapon. In fact, a brochure
of the type of weapon
00:43:35
that was used in this case
was found in Mr. Ibar's home where he lived during
the course of the murder.
00:43:44
So this was good for Manzella. He had one man, but it didn't
answer the question, who was
00:43:48
the other person in the video. So he started interviewing
Pablo's friends. They had known each
other for a long time,
00:43:54
although they went to
different high schools and even were members
of different gangs
00:43:58
at one point in their lives. Jean Klimeczko was a
kid with a problem. He was addicted to drugs,
had been in and out of jail,
00:44:06
and needed a place to stay. Pablo offered his
home on Lee Street. JOHN HOLLAND: Seth
Penalver was part
00:44:34
of the group of friends
that lived in Lea Street along with Rincon and Pablo. Unlike Pablo, Seth did
have a criminal history.
00:44:42
He had been arrested in the
1990s on weapons charges. All right, Seth Penalver. Your attorney's here.
00:45:26
He's up at the podium. I'm going to read you the
charges and then let him speak.
00:45:33
Count one is murder,
first degree. Police insist that this is the
gunman in the dark clothes who
00:45:45
struck that blow, 21-year-old
Seth Manolo Penalver, and that the second
gunman in white is
00:45:52
22-year-old Pablo Manuel Ibar. For Ibar's former roommate,
there is no question.
00:45:59
Are you sure right away that
that was Pablo on that tape? Yeah. Someone you hang out with,
you know what I'm saying,
00:46:06
you see them on tape? Shocking. It was a startling piece
of video shown before Judge
00:46:12
Charles Green as part
of a preliminary hearing for defendant Seth
Penalver, who was
00:46:17
joined in court by the
second defendant, Pablo Ibar. Miramar police
are convinced they
00:46:22
are the two men who
burst into the home with semi-automatic weapons. Eventually, all three victims
would be shot to death.
00:46:41
No prosecutor, no
one wants to convict someone who is innocent. We can only go by the evidence
that's presented to us,
00:46:49
and our conclusions
and inferences drawn from that evidence. And nor did I have
any other evidence
00:46:56
to lead me in any other
direction that would convince me that I had the wrong person.
00:47:03
It was a clause case. Clearly in those cases where
people commit very heinous, or atrocious, or cold and
very calculated murders,
00:47:15
I do believe, personally
feel that the death penalty is appropriate. I told my sister the day she
died, I will never let this go.
00:48:24
Not ever. From the day she
died to the day I'm sitting in an execution room,
I'm never going to let it go.