Family wants Boca grandmother's killer to suffer after 2019 beating, burning

WEST PALM BEACH — The death penalty wasn't punishment enough for the family of Evelyn Udell, a retired librarian bludgeoned inside her Boca Raton home in 2019. A syringe in the arm of her killer was too kind, they told the judge Wednesday. They wanted him to rot.

Circuit Judge Daliah Weiss nodded occasionally as they wished this and worse upon Jorge Dupre Lachazo at the 24-year-old man's sentencing hearing this week.

Lachazo killed Udell on Aug. 19, 2019, after he arrived at her home to install a washer-dryer set she had purchased from Best Buy. He left his fingerprints behind on the mallet he used to beat in her skull and on the can of acetone with which he lit her body on fire.

Weiss on April 5 sentenced Lachazo to two life sentences without the possibility of parole, tacking on an additional 30 years for first-degree arson.

"This was a harmless woman in her mid-70's. A wife, a mother, a grandmother, a friend to so many people," Weiss said before passing the sentence. "A woman who had a life well lived with honor, full of love, compassion — anything that you'd want in a person. That much is clear."

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The judge looked hard at Lachazo as she announced the sentence, enunciating each life imprisonment distinctly and with a tilt of her chin. His actions were senseless, she said. It was hard to fathom how the chance intersection of his life with Udell's ended in such horror.

Authorities arrived at the home to find Udell propped upright against her new washing machine, the top half of her body on fire and her hair soaked in blood. She moaned, still alive.

"I'm a bad person. I want to die," Lachazo, then 21, told officers after his arrest. "Use that pistol already. Use it already. Disappear me. Disappear me."

Lachazo said voices told him to kill Udell, and he listened. He reversed course later, telling police that a nameless group of ne’er-do-wells was extorting him. He needed money — Udell’s money — to get them off his back, he said.

Assistant State Attorney Reid Scott argued during the three-day bench trial in January that neither voices nor extortionists precipitated the murder. It was greed, Scott said, "an attempt to take money, take more money, take all the money" — to take whatever he wanted.

Boca Raton police found $203 in Lachazo's pocket when they arrested him. Scott suggested it came from Udell's wallet, which detectives found open and rummaged through, a dollar bill left burning beside her.

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Weiss convicted Lachazo of first-degree murder mere moments after the attorneys finished delivering their closing arguments on Jan. 25. The verdict was hers alone; Lachazo opted for a rare nonjury trial reserved for cases attorneys believe are too gruesome or evocative for a jury to rule on objectively.

Where jurors might have blanched, Weiss only listened. She took notes throughout the trial as paramedics described Udell's body on fire, her skin blackening as they tried to extinguish the flames.

Udell's son, Harran, replaced the image of his mother's death Wednesday with details of her life. She was a Penn State graduate, a librarian, a volunteer, "the most unathletic person you'd ever meet," he said. She hated to cook but loved to read, always ready with a book in her purse to pass the time at her sons' sporting events.

She was a great tipper, too, he said. She was tiny — the same size as her 10-year-old grandson when Lachazo beat her beyond recognition with a rubber mallet. She was taken to the hospital with her clothes melted into her skin, Harran Udell said, her body so covered in protective wrappings that he could only kiss her ankle.

A translator murmured his testimony to Lachazo in Spanish even as it turned from a retelling of Udell's life to a condemnation of Lachazo's. He was pathetic and weak, Harran Udell said.

"With any luck, the prison justice we see in movies will be visited upon you," he said.

For each curse lobbed at Lachazo, Assistant Public Defender Scott Pribble interrupted with an objection, most of which Weiss quickly overruled.

Pribble and Assistant Public Defender Renee Sihvola filed a motion prior to the sentencing asking Weiss to consider Lachazo's youth and impaired cognitive function, which they blamed on cocaine and marijuana use, when sentencing him.

Weiss said she could only sentence Lachazo to life in prison, dismissing the attorneys' push to declare the mandatory minimum sentence unconstitutional. Older than 18, Lachazo is not a youthful offender, she told them, and therefore shouldn't be afforded the same considerations as a minor.

Harran Udell looked sick throughout Lachazo's trial, but he smiled when he left the courtroom Wednesday.

"I hope that guy suffers the rest of his life," he told Scott.

The prosecutor nodded. He will, he said.

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Murder of Boca Raton grandmother earns life sentences for deliveryman