Mitch Polay News Today

A Lake Worth Beach man facing the death penalty for the 2013 murders of a Deerfield Beach couple decided Tuesday that he might need his lawyers after all.

A Lake Worth Beach man, convicted of brutally murdering an elderly couple in their Deerfield Beach home in 2013, is asking a Broward judge for permission to represent himself at the penalty phase of his trial, a move that appears designed to end with a death sentence.

Rosario “Ross” Melici is guilty of first-degree murder. A jury decided that last month. But did he stab Philip and Barbara Russo to death, or was that his accomplice’s dirty work? The same jury that convicted him on Nov. 14 is coming back to decide whether Melici deserves to be executed for the murders of the Deerfield Beach couple.

Two men, Richard Andres and Jonathan Gordon, were found guilty Friday in the 2015 shooting death of Ivan Brandt, a Tamarac man worried about his ex-girlfriend’s new man, Andres, only to have him show up at his door and kill him.

Jonathan Gordon, one of two men on trial for the 2015 murder of Tamarac resident Ivan Brandt, took the stand Thursday in a bid to convince a jury that he acted in self-defense and doesn’t deserve to be sent to prison, or worse, death row.

Veteran prosecutor Shari Tate, the first woman to head the county's homicide unit, is retiring and leaving South Florida.

Gerhard Hojan was sentenced in the 2002 murders of two Waffle House employees Published October 16, 2018 • Updated on October 16, 2018 at 10:08 pm Back in 2002, Barbara Nunn survived a gunshot to the head while two of her Waffle House coworkers were murdered, execution-style, by a man who robbed the Davie restaurant alongside an accomplice. The killer, Gerhard Hojan, was convicted of first-degree murder, armed kidnapping and robbery and was already sentenced to death by a 9-3 ruling....