Prosecutors and defense argue over whether the man who killed five people in a Florida bank deserves the death penalty

A former prison guard in training who executed five women in a Florida bank in 2019 deserves the death penalty because the massacre was “shockingly evil,” well planned and designed to psychologically torture his victims, a prosecutor argued Wednesday in the murderer’s punishment trial.

Assistant District Attorney Bonde Johnson told jurors in his closing argument that 27-year-old Zephen Xaver committed the massacre at the SunTrust Bank in Sebring to satisfy his years-long desire to experience the killing by forcing the women to lie down before executing them.

“He didn’t kill one person to really know what it was like to kill. He killed five. He watched them lying there on the ground. They were under his control, for his pleasure, as he shot each one,” Johnson said.

But defense attorney Jane McNeill asked the twelve jurors to spare Xaver because he was mentally ill and had been hearing voices since childhood that urged him to kill himself and others. He had sought help, she said, but never really got any.

“We ask you to show Zephen what he perhaps least deserves – compassion, mercy and mercy,” McNeill said, his voice breaking. “Compassion is not a limited resource. Mercy is not limited. Mercy is not limited. Sentencing Zephen to life in prison is the right thing to do.”

The jury will deliberate in camera whether to sentence Xaver to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Xaver pleaded guilty last year to five counts of first-degree murder for the Jan. 23, 2019 massacre in the town of Sebring, about 84 miles southeast of Tampa. The trial at the Sebring courthouse was delayed for years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, legal disputes and the lawyer’s illness.

Under a 2023 Florida law, the jury only needs to vote 8-4 for the death penalty for District Judge Angela Cowden to impose that sentence. State law required a unanimous jury recommendation for a judge to impose the death penalty, but Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature changed that after a jury voted 9-3 to spare the gunman who murdered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018.

Xaver’s victims included customer Cynthia Watson, 65, who had been married for less than a month; bank teller coordinator Marisol Lopez, 55, who was a mother of two; bank trainee Ana Pinon-Williams, a 38-year-old mother of seven; bank teller Debra Cook, a 54-year-old mother of two and grandmother; and bank teller Jessica Montague, 31, a mother of one and stepmother of four other children.

He ordered them to lie on the ground and then shot them while they screamed “Why?”

During the two-week trial, prosecutors portrayed Xaver as a cold and calculating killer who pretended to hear voices to hide his violent impulses. His lawyers countered that he had a long history of psychotic episodes. A defense doctor told jurors he had a small, benign brain tumor that could explain his behavior – a prosecution doctor testified that he did not have one.

In 2014, the principal of Xavier’s high school in Indiana contacted police after he told a counselor that he was having dreams about killing classmates and exhibiting other alarming behavior. His mother, Misty Hendricks, promised to get him psychological help. She testified in court that she stopped him from taking his medication when he was 17 because he seemed to be getting better.

He joined the army but was discharged during basic training in 2016 for having homicidal thoughts. Those thoughts persisted, the jury heard.

“It’s all I can think about, it’s all I hear every day, it’s all I see every day. It’s all I smell and taste every day: blood, death and murder. It’s all that happens to me 24/7,” Xaver wrote to a friend. He posted similar messages online.

In 2018, he moved to Sebring. The local prison soon hired him, but he quit after two months. That was one day after he bought his gun and two weeks before the massacre.

On the morning of the murders, he had a long text message conversation with a friend, telling her that it would be the “best day of his life,” but refusing to say why.

Just minutes before he entered the bank, he finally told her that he was about to die. Then he added “the funny part.”

“I’m taking some people with me because I’ve always wanted to kill,” he wrote.

Prosecutors played the 911 call that Xaver made from inside the bank moments after the shooting, as he calmly reported the murders to the switchboard operator.

“I didn’t think I could do it, but…” he said, his voice trailing off. When dispatcher Kristen Johnson asked why he killed the women, he didn’t answer at first, but then said, “I thought I could. I wanted to do it.”

Then he said he was about to commit suicide.

“I’ve wanted to die since I was nine,” he told Johnson, whose voice grew increasingly anxious over the course of the 45-minute phone call. She begged him to put down his gun, saying help was on the way. He refused.

“There’s no helping me,” he said. He said that since he was eleven years old, voices had been calling out to him to kill.

Xaver surrendered after speaking on the phone with a crisis negotiator for the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office. He told a detective, “I deserve to die for this.”

Defense witnesses testified that Xaver was a quiet and friendly child, but had problems at school. They said he developed a dark development during puberty.

Dr. Tod Stillson, his pediatrician, said a head injury Xaver suffered while playing football worsened his behavior. Xaver had homicidal and suicidal thoughts, he said, so he prescribed medication for anxiety, depression and sleep problems. Xaver also saw a psychologist.

Melissa Manges, his high school counselor, testified that Xaver wanted more comprehensive help with his disturbing thoughts and told her that they frightened him, but he was not accepted into any of the long-term residential programs.

“The system has failed Zephen,” she said.