• You must be logged in to see or use the Shoutbox. Besides, if you haven't registered, you really should. It's quick and it will make your life a little better. Trust me. So just register and make yourself at home with like-minded individuals who share either your morbid curiousity or sense of gallows humor.
Jury selection began Monday for the trial of Granville Ritchie.

Ritchie is accused of murdering 9-year-old Felecia Williams in May of 2014.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Felecia Demerson, the girl’s mother, said. “My main concern is that we’d be her face and get justice for her.”

Demerson has been at nearly every court hearing and now the trial for Granville Ritchie. He’s been accused of sexually assaulting, beating and strangling Felecia then putting her body in a suitcase and dumping her in Hillsborough Bay near the Courtney Campbell Causeway.

The case has taken a long time to get to trial in part because in 2016 the U.S. Supreme Court found Florida's death penalty law to be unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court mandated that capital punishment must be a unanimous jury's decision, not the judge’s.

“We’ve had cases that have come back to us due to changes in the law over the past few years,” Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said.

Warren inherited the Ritchie case. When he took office, Warren took the death penalty off the table in several prosecutions but decided he would continue to seek the death penalty in Ritchie’s trial.

The state attorney cited aggravating factors including sexual battery and the fact the girl was less than 12 years old.

“The reality is that the death penalty cases take a long time to go through the system - as they should,” Warren said. “We went to expedite that process as much as we can to hold the defendants accountable and to achieve justice for victims and their families. But the cases take some time to work their way through the system.”

Demerson says if he is convicted, she thinks Ritchie should be executed.

“Because I feel he not only took her away from our family but also he took her away from our commu
 
"Felecia's death has affected my life and took its toll on my entire family. Even though it's been five years, it feels like five days ago. I have not yet returned to work. I have been diagnosed with chronic depression... I'm on seven types of medication, trying to cope with this new normal called life," said Demerson.

She told the jury she knew from the beginning, her 'sugar plum' would be her special child.
 
The same jury that convicted Granville Ritchie of raping and killing 9-year-old Felecia Williams unanimously decided Friday night he should be put to death.

It took the jury roughly three hours to come to a decision, unanimously agreeing the crime was heinous enough to warrant the death penalty.

The victim’s mother Felecia Demerson spoke to 8 On Your Side immediately after, calling the decision justice for her daughter. She said she was “relieved” to see her five year nightmare come to a close.

“As long as I know he’s in that box for the rest of his life, that’s all I care about,” Demerson said. “Because my daughter is up under all that dirt, in a box for the rest of her life.”
 
In a show of strength and humility, the father of Felecia Williams, a 9-year-old Florida girl who was raped and murdered in 2014, forgave his daughter’s killer in court Friday.

Granville Ritchie was found guilty of killing Felecia in Sept. 2019. Investigators said he had strangled the child to death before putting her body in a suitcase and dumping it near a causeway in May 2014.

On Friday, Ritchie was sentenced to death after Judge Michelle Sisco heard a number of statements about the impact of his crimes.

Felecia’s father, Jerome Williams, took the stand at Friday’s hearing, saying he has forgiven his daughter’s killer more than six years after her death.

“I’m not like everybody else, bro. I ain’t got no ill will against you,” Williams said. “The journey you got ahead of you going to need God. I forgive you.”

Williams told Ritchie he didn’t want revenge because “a lot of people would have suffered if I would have dealt with it.”

Williams said he served time in prison, but it’s unclear what crime he may have committed.

“I’m not like everybody else, I’ve been where you’ve been at. I’m still supposed to be where you be at. But he [God] set me free. That’s what he’ll do for you. He may not release you physically, but spiritually he will,” he told Ritchie. “You ask God to make you a better man. Because I asked, and he made me a better man, so I ask that you do the same.”

“Don’t look at this as your life being over,” he said. “You did wrong. Your mistakes is [sic] worse than others. When you get back to your cell, you get on your knees and you pray harder than you ever prayed in your life, and you ask for his forgiveness. I give you mine, I got no ill will toward you, bro. I love you, you are a child of God. But don’t play with it, because if you play with it, he’s going to destroy you.”
 
Convicted child killer Granville Ritchie is sitting on death row for the rape and murder of nine-year-old Felecia Williams in 2014, but he says he doesn't belong there and is now asking the Florida Supreme court to intervene.

Ritchie has filed an appeal claiming prosecutorial mistakes and wants a do-over.

Ritchie's appellate attorney, Rachel Roebuck, says Tampa prosecutor Scott Harmon's passionate arguments for death to the jury violated the law.

Roebuck claims Harmon inflamed the jury in his closing arguments and violated what is known as the ‘Golden Rule Law,’ which is a suggestion made to a jury to place itself in the victim's or defendant’s position.

That improper argument encourages the jury to focus on personal interests and bias instead of the evidence.

Justice Jamie Grosshans had a pointed question for the state’s appellate attorney and read a portion of Harmon’s arguments.

Grosshans stated, "What he said was, 'Can you imagine the dread of knowing that your life is ending and you are feeling pain all over your body?' Then he describes it in full graphic detail and then he said, 'that pain would’ve been greater for a little girl,' so I’m trying to figure out how that is not a Golden Rule violation."

The appellate attorney for the state, Rick Buckwalter, struggled to answer the justice.

He conceded Harmon went up to the line but didn't cross it. Buckwalter pointed out Harmon was describing the heinous nature of the crime and made an off-the-cuff statement.
Ritchie's attorney pounced.

"There is no way that is true. Mr. Harmon is a veteran prosecutor who has been prosecuting homicides for 20 years. He wrote out this argument he gave it to colleagues I guarantee you and tested it this was deliberate," argued Roebuck.


Now, the justices will have to decide if that’s true. If Ritchie wins his appeal, he would be granted a new sentencing trial, which would determine whether he gets life in prison or stays on death row.
 
this asshole has the nerve to try and weasel out of this even after the father delivered that poignant and merciful statement. @Satanica was right, it certainly was lost on Ritchie.
 
The Florida Supreme Court has affirmed the death sentence of Granville Ritchie, who was convicted in 2019 for the rape and murder of 9-year-old Felecia Williams in Temple Terrace.
In an opinion released Thursday, a majority of the court found no legal basis to overturn Ritchie’s death sentence. But they did criticize several statements that the lead prosecutor, Assistant State Attorney Scott Harmon, made during closing arguments in the trial’s penalty phase.
They included comments implying that the jury shouldn’t extend mercy to the defendant because he hadn’t shown any mercy to the victim. They also included discussion of Ritchie having immigrated from Jamaica, and comparisons the prosecutor made between Jamaica and the American legal system.
Some of the prosecutor’s rhetoric could be taken as anti-immigrant, and has no place in the courts, the justices wrote.
While the court found some of the comments were improper, they were isolated statements in an otherwise proper argument based on the case evidence. Evidence of the “horrific and senseless crimes against the victim” produced the jury’s finding in favor of a death sentence, not the prosecutor’s comments, the court wrote.
Justice Jorge Labarga disagreed, writing in a dissent that the prosecutor’s comments were a “fundamental error” that required a new sentencing hearing.
The majority’s decision means Ritchie, 43, will remain on Florida’s death row. His legal options may include bringing new claims in the trial court, or taking his case into the federal system.

Ritchie was charged with her murder a few months later. He was convicted at trial in 2019. The jury unanimously favored the death penalty. A judge later imposed a death sentence.
Ritchie chose not to contest the guilt portion of his trial. His appellate attorney wrote in a brief to the high court that Ritchie acknowledges the state’s evidence was sufficient to overcome an acquittal.
1654879546018.png

 
Back
Top