Twice-convicted killer should be put back on Florida’s death row, Broward jury recommends
Peter Avsenew, who maintained his innocence in court Thursday despite having been convicted twice of the brutal 2010 murders of a Wilton Manors couple, deserves to be sentenced to death, a Broward jury decided.
The jury deliberated less than an hour before reaching its unanimous decision — Broward’s first death penalty recommendation since a new law was passed this year making it easier to send convicted killers to death row.
Avsenew, 38, represented himself for the penalty phase of his retrial, offering the jury only two reasons to spare his life: His good conduct in jail since his arrest, and the fact that the most notorious killer in recent Broward history had his life spared.
“If Nikolas Cruz doesn’t deserve death, who the hell does?” Avsenew asked, referring to the gunman who murdered 17 students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018. A judge sentenced Cruz to life in prison after a jury failed to reach a unanimous death sentence recommendation on Oct. 13, 2022.
Two days before the jury recommended life for Cruz, Avsenew’s jury had recommended his execution by a 12-0 vote for the murders of Stephen Adams and Kevin Powell, a Wilton Manors couple who took him into their home during the holiday season.
In 2010, two days before Christmas, Avsenew beat the two men beyond recognition and shot them repeatedly, then stole their SUV, went shopping with their credit cards, and fled to his mother’s home in Polk County.
The 2022 death recommendation for Avsenew was overturned late last year when Broward Circuit Judge Martin Fein learned that jurors joked about the case and admitted watching a documentary in a private social media group before the death penalty arguments formally took place in court.
The new jury listened to evidence on Wednesday and heard closing arguments on Thursday. Assistant State Attorney Molly McGuire showed pictures of the victims and described their killing as “heinous, atrocious and cruel,” fitting one of numerous legal requirements that allow for a death sentence.
Avsenew, who fired his lawyers in September, had also represented himself during the penalty phase of his first trial in 2018. In his closing arguments then, Avsenew was defiant, proclaiming that he had no regrets and was proud of the decisions he’d made in life. The results of the first trial were overturned by the Florida Supreme Court in January 2022.
He was more subdued in his closing argument Thursday, merely maintaining his innocence and recognizing that his life was at stake before comparing his conviction with the Parkland gunman’s.
His argument did not sway a single juror.
The judge scheduled a status conference for Monday. Next up will be a “Spencer hearing” later in the week, which will give Avsenew a final chance to plead for the court’s mercy before a sentencing hearing is held.
Marci Craig, Adams’ younger sister, said her family and Powell’s had weathered intense grief since the murders but managed to persevere.
“What he did to our family did not destroy us,” she said, “and it will not define us. Our faith is what has seen us through.”
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-304-5256.
