By Joel Anderson, Times Staff Writer
Monday, August 30, 2010
BROOKSVILLE — First, the jurors were shown a portrait of a smiling elderly couple. They had been married 62 years and lived a quiet and orderly life in retirement, going to church, keeping up their home and hosting family dinners most weekends.
In a second set of photos, jurors were shown more photos of the same couple. But Patrick and Evelyn DePalma were not smiling in these pictures.
The photos were from their autopsy, which showed the gruesome extent of their fatal injuries. The DePalmas had been brutally beaten and stabbed to death in their home, victims of a vicious and seemingly random crime.
"They were murdered in their own home at the hands of that defendant right there," Assistant State Attorney Pete Magrino said, punctuating the statement by pointing at Robert Jardin.
Magrino began his closing arguments Monday morning in Jardin's trial with those images, urging the 12-person jury to remember that Jardin was in the DePalmas' secluded, south-central Hernando County home on the night of their deaths in late October 2006.
Jardin, 35, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, armed robbery and grand theft in the stabbing deaths of Patrick, 84, and Evelyn, 79, DePalma. If convicted, Jardin could be sentenced to death.
After a week of testimony and a weekend break, jurors returned to the Hernando County Government Center on Monday to hear closing arguments from Magrino and Public Defender Alan Fanter.
Wearing an olive-colored suit, Jardin showed little expression and stared straight ahead throughout much of the morning. Last week, Jardin would occasionally smile and even manage a few small jokes with a woman friend who showed up to court every day.
But not Monday, Jardin didn't even turn around to greet the woman once the jury was in the courtroom.
Magrino spent more than an hour laying out his case, revisiting evidence that placed Jardin in the DePalmas' home near Masaryktown and reminding jurors that Jardin had lied to detectives a number of times during the course of the murder investigation.
"If you want to believe the stories the defendant told you in this case, I can't stop you," Magrino said, somewhat sarcastically. "You can walk him out the back of the courthouse."
But Fanter reminded jurors that there was no evidence that showed Jardin participated in the murders, or that he had intended to even go to the DePalmas' home that night.
"If there was any evidence tying Mr. Jardin to the murder, you would have heard it," Fanter said. "But there isn't."
A former Marine and divorced father of three children, Jardin testified last week that he accepted a ride with a man named "Rick" to score some cocaine and that, along the way, they stopped to pick up another man named "Bub." They continued to the DePalmas' home on Korbus Lane and instructed Jardin to stay outside in the car. Within minutes, Jardin said, they waved him inside and into the grisly crime scene.
Jardin said he never told anyone what happened that night because Rick had threatened to harm his children.
After closing arguments, Circuit Judge Jack Springstead went over instructions with the jury. Jurors were then set to begin deliberations.
They came to court prepared to spend a night away from home, if necessary, dragging suitcases and other luggage into a holding area in the courtroom.
Joel Anderson can be reached at joelanderson@sptimes.com or (352) 754-6120.