FLORIDA – Carl Dausch – Judge sets date to decide on death sentence

march, 31 2012 source : http://www.dailycommercial.com

A Sumter County judge has set a date to decide whether to approve the jury’s death recommendation given to a hitchhiker last year who stood trial on sexual battery and murder charges of a Lake Panasoffkee motorist.

Carl Dausch 53, of Indiana, will be sentenced April 26 at the Sumter County courthouse in the first-degree murder conviction in the 1987 death of Adrian Renard Mobley .

“I’m hoping everything will go as planned,” said prosecutor Pete Magrino, who started seeking the death penalty shortly after Dausch was brought back to Sumter County to face the charges.

A pre-sentencing hearing Tuesday included a letter submitted by Dausch’s daughter in support of her father’s character. Magrino said the court may give the letter some consideration but he doesn’t expect it to block the jury’s suggestion.

The hearing also comes after Judge William Hallman denied a list of motions by the defense in their arguments for a new trial.

The body of Mobley, 27, an electronics manager at the Walmart in Bushnell, was found stomped to death and hog-tied on July 15, 1987, off County Road 475 in Bushnell.

Mobley‘s legs were tied to his hands and arms behind him with a bed sheet. His jeans were partially pulled down.

And, Mobley‘s 1981 red Honda Accord and wallet were missing.

Sumter County Office sheriff’s detectives initially ran cold on the case. In 2004, a cigarette butt retrieved from the Honda was tested for DNA, which pointed to Dausch, an Indiana prison inmate at the time who was serving 60 years on an unrelated rape and battery convictions.

Magrino said DNA on anal swabs taken of the Mobley also linked Dausch to the crime.

The statue of limitations had run out for any robbery charges. But Dausch was indicted on murder and sexual battery charges. In December, a jury found Dausch guilty of murder, but downgraded the sexual battery charge to aggravated battery.

case  progress docket : read here