A former prison guard trainee who executed five women inside a Florida bank almost six years ago was sentenced to death on Monday as his judge called the slayings calculated, heinous and cruel.
Zephen Xaver, 27, appeared to gulp but otherwise showed no emotion as Circuit Judge Angela Cowden pronounced the sentence at the Highlands County Courthouse in Sebring. After a two-week penalty trial, a jury in June voted 9-3 to recommend that Cowden sentence Xaver to death.
Cowden said the weeks of planning that Xaver performed before the 2019 murders at Sebring's SunTrust bank, the enormity of the crime and the fear the victims felt as they were shot greatly outweighed the two dozen mitigating factors his attorneys had presented, including his history of mental illness, his benign brain tumor and his jailhouse embrace of Christianity.
“May God have mercy on your soul,” Cowden told Xaver.
Xaver pleaded guilty last year to five counts of first-degree murder for the slayings of customer Cynthia Watson, 65; bank teller coordinator Marisol Lopez, 55; banker trainee Ana Pinon-Williams, 38; teller Debra Cook, 54; and banker Jessica Montague, 31.
At gunpoint, Xaver ordered the women to lie on the floor and then shot each the head as they begged for mercy.
Kiara Lopez told Xaver and the court that her mother Marisol had welcomed him into the bank with a smile, an act he repaid by murdering her.
“You shattered me into a million pieces," Lopez said. “I will celebrate the day you die, whenever that might be. Let it be known that you will always be a killer, a coward, a nobody and a waste of human life.”
Michael Cook, Debra's husband, also called Xaver a coward and told the judge, “I have absolutely no sympathy for him.”
Xaver’s lead public defender, Jane McNeill, had asked that Cowden spare her client, saying a life sentence would put an end to the case instead of dragging it out for a decade of appeals and possibly a retrial if the sentence is overturned.
“The only way for this matter to be brought to an end so that the families of the victims and this community is able to move forward is a life sentence,” McNeill argued. The sentence will be automatically appealed.
Under a new Florida law, death penalty sentences can be rendered by a jury vote of 8-4 rather than a unanimous recommendation. The change was adopted after the 2018 Parkland high school shooter could not be sentenced to death for murdering 17 people despite a 9-3 jury vote. McNeill called the new law unconstitutional.
Xaver moved to Sebring, a city of about 11,000, in 2018 from near South Bend, Indiana. In 2014, his high school principal contacted police after Xaver told others he was having dreams about hurting his classmates. His mother promised to get him psychological help.
He joined the Army in 2016. A former girlfriend, who met him at a mental hospital where they were patients, told police he said joining the military was a “way to kill people and get away with it.” The Army discharged him after three months. In 2017, a Michigan woman reported him after he sent her text messages suggesting he might commit “suicide by cop” or take hostages.
Despite his psychological problems and dismissal from the Army, Florida hired Xaver as a guard trainee in November 2018 at a prison near Sebring. He quit two months later, two weeks before the shootings and the day after he bought his gun.
Hours before the murders, Xaver began a long, intermittent text message conversation with a former girlfriend in Connecticut, telling her “this is the best day of my life” but refusing to say why. Fifteen minutes before the shootings, he texted her, “I’m dying today,”
Then, from the bank parking lot he texted, “I’m taking a few people with me because I’ve always wanted to kill people so I am going to try it and see how it goes. Watch for me on the news.”
FILE - A Highlands County Sheriff's SWAT vehicle is stationed out in front of a SunTrust Bank branch, Jan. 23, 2019, in Sebring, Fla., where authorities say five people were shot and killed. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)
FILE - This Jan. 23, 2019, file, booking photo released by the Highlands County Sheriff's Office shows Zephen Xaver. (Highlands County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)
BANGKOK (AP) — The death toll from the massive earthquake that hit Myanmar nearly a week ago rose Thursday to 3,085 as search and rescue teams found more bodies, the military-led government said, and humanitarian aid groups scrambled to provide survivors medical care and shelter.
In a short statement, the military said another 4,715 people have been injured and 341 are missing.
The epicenter of Friday's 7.7 magnitude earthquake was near Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city. It brought down thousands of buildings, buckled roads and destroyed bridges in multiple regions.
Local media reports of casualties have been much higher than the official figures and with telecommunications widely out and many places difficult to reach, it's thought the numbers could rise sharply as more details come in.
The World Health Organization said that according to its initial assessment, four hospitals and one health center had been completely destroyed while another 32 hospitals and 18 health centers had been partially damaged.
“With infrastructure compromised and patient numbers surging, access to health care has become nearly impossible in many of the worst-hit areas,” the U.N. said. “Thousands of people are in urgent need of trauma care, surgical interventions and treatment for disease outbreaks.”
A mobile hospital from India and a joint Russian-Belarusian hospital also were now operating in Mandalay.
With many left homeless by the earthquake, and many others staying away from their homes over fears ongoing aftershocks will bring them down, workers in Naypyitaw labored in the 40 degree Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) busily erected big tents in open fields to provide some shelter.
Myanmar’s military seized power in 2021 from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking what has turned into a civil war.
The quake worsened an already dire humanitarian crisis, with more than 3 million people displaced from their homes and nearly 20 million in need even before it hit, according to the United Nations.
As concerns grew that ongoing fighting could hamper humanitarian aid efforts, the military declared a temporary ceasefire Wednesday, through April 22. The announcement followed unilateral temporary ceasefires announced by armed resistance groups opposed to military rule.
The military said it would still take “necessary” measures against those groups if they use the ceasefire to regroup, train or launch attacks.
Already on Thursday there were reports from local media in Kachin state in the north of Myanmar that military attacks continued in several areas, but they could not be independently confirmed. Prior to the earthquake the military was battling the Kachin Independence Army militia group. The earthquake shook Kachin, but there have been no reports of damage there.
In Bangkok, where the quake brought down a skyscraper under construction, the search for survivors and bodies continued as Gov. Chadchart Sittipunt said a possible sound of life was detected in the rubble. By mid-afternoon, more than 144 hours after the earthquake, nobody had been found.
Twenty-two people were killed and 35 injured in the city, mostly by the collapse of the unfinished building.
Associated Press writer Jintamas Saksornchai contributed to this report.
Rescuers carry the body of a victim, from a collapsed building in the aftermath of Friday's earthquake in Mandalay, Myanmar, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo)
Rescuers carry the body of a victim, from a collapsed building in the aftermath of Friday's earthquake in Mandalay, Myanmar, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo)
Rescue members carry a dead body from a collapsed building in the aftermath of Friday's earthquake in Mandalay, Myanmar, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo)
Rescuers carry the body of a victim, from a collapsed building, in the aftermath of Friday's earthquake in Mandalay, Myanmar, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo)
Rescuers scan the rubbles at the site of an under construction high-rise building that collapsed after an earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Wednesday, April 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
Rescuers manually clear the rubble after getting a sign of life at the site of an under construction high-rise building that collapsed after an earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Thursday, April, 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
Rescuers return after accessing the situation at the site of an under construction high-rise building that collapsed after an earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Thursday, April, 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
Rescuers manually clear the rubble after getting a sign of life at the site of an under construction high-rise building that collapsed after an earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Thursday, April, 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
Rescuers manually clear the rubble after getting a sign of life at the site of an under construction high-rise building that collapsed after an earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Thursday, April, 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
Workers clean and wash the road outside the site of an under construction high-rise building that collapsed after an earthquake in Bangkok, Thailand, Thursday, April, 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)
