|
 Juan Carlos Chavez, who confessed to the murder of Jimmy Ryce, was
executed at the Florida State Prison at Starke, Florida, at 8:17
p.m. EST (0117 GMT Thursday), said Jackie Schutz, a spokeswoman for
Governor Rick Scott.
A Florida law passed in the wake of the killing cleared the way for
imprisoned sexual offenders to be held after their release if found
likely to repeat their crimes. The law has been replicated across
the United States.
The execution, attended by Ryce's father, was briefly delayed by a
last-minute appeal that the U.S. Supreme Court denied.
The Department of Corrections said Chavez had a last meal of steak,
French fries, strawberry ice cream, mixed fruit and mango juice in
the afternoon. He had no visitors, officials said.
In a written statement released by the state after his death, Chavez
expressed no remorse, saying that "None of us can pass judgment on
another (man's) sins."
Chavez wrote, "I doubt that there is anything I can say that would
satisfy everybody, even less those who see in me nothing more (than)
someone deserving of punishment."
Chavez, who worked as a farmhand and had no criminal history,
kidnapped the boy at gunpoint as he got off a school bus in Redland,
an agricultural area of south Miami-Dade County.
He took Ryce to his trailer and raped him. When the boy tried to
escape, Chavez shot him in the back, dismembered him and hid his
body in plastic pots.
The boy's disappearance shook south Florida and garnered national
attention. Hundreds of volunteers signed up for the search and his
parents held a stream of press conferences.
Three months after disappearing, Jimmy's remains were found near
Chavez's trailer after his landlord found the boy's school bag.
Chavez arrived in south Florida on a raft from Cuba with two others
in 1991 and was working as a farmhand at the time of the murder.
Little is known about his background or family, who remained in
Cuba.
[to top of second column] |
The Florida Supreme Court upheld Chavez's 1998 conviction and death
sentence. Subsequent appeals were denied.
After Jimmy's death Don Ryce and his mother Claudine, who died in
2009, became advocates for abducted and missing children. They
opened a center for abduction victims in south Florida and have
provided hundreds of bloodhounds to law enforcement nationwide to
help find missing children.
The Ryces were on hand as President Bill Clinton in 1996 signed an
order instructing federal agencies to post missing-children posters
in federal buildings.
Don Ryce, a retired lawyer now living near central Florida, told the
Miami Herald recently that the loss of his son broke the heart of
his wife and his daughter.
"This is the kind of loss that never gets right, that you never
completely recover from," Ryce told the paper.
His daughter, Jimmy's half-sister, Martha, committed suicide in
2012.
After the execution Don Ryce told reporters that he had a message
for future child predators.
"Don't kill the child. Don't kill the child," Ryce said. "Because if
you do, people will not forget. They will not forgive. We will hunt
you down, and we will put you to death."
(Writing and reporting by Zachary Fagenson;
editing by David Adams, Sofina Mirza-Reid, Eric Walsh, Richard Chang and Lisa Shumaker)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
