Kenneth Dessaure was sentenced to death by the State of Florida for the murder of Cindy Riedweg
According to court documents Kenneth Dessaure would sexually assault and murder his neighbor Cindy Riedweg. Dessaure would call the police to say he found a dead naked woman in her apartment
Kenneth Dessaure would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
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Kenneth Dessaure is incarcerated at Union Correctional Institution
Kenneth Dessaure Case
Dessaure was charged with the 1999 murder of Cindy Riedweg. Dessaure v. State, 891 So.2d 455, 457 (Fla.2004). The jury found Dessaure guilty of first-degree murder.2 And the trial court sentenced Dessaure to death.3 Id. at 457.
The evidence presented at Dessaure’s trial revealed that Dessaure lived with two other people in an apartment in Oldsmar, Florida, and that Ms. Riedweg moved into the apartment next door a couple of weeks before the murder. Id. On the day of the murder, another neighbor testified that he encountered Dessaure in the parking lot, and Dessaure told him that he thought someone was dead or dying in Ms. Riedweg’s apartment. Id. The neighbor asked Dessaure how he knew this, and Dessaure replied that he went to Ms. Riedweg’s apartment to ask for ice and looked in. Id. The neighbor said Dessaure appeared nervous and that he told Dessaure to call 911 because he wanted nothing to do with the situation. Id. Thereafter, Dessaure called 911 and reported to the operators that his next-door neighbor was dead. Id. On the 911 tape, which was played for the jury at trial, Dessaure stated that he saw Ms. Riedweg outside sunbathing, he went to her apartment to see if she had any ice, and when she did not answer the door, he went in through the unlocked door and found her lying in the middle of the floor. Id. at 458.
When the paramedics arrived, they entered Ms. Riedweg’s apartment and found her lying face down on the floor in a pool of blood. Id. She had stab wounds on her upper back and shoulders, she had no pulse, and she was not breathing. Id. After they rolled her over, they discovered that her throat had been slashed. Id. The assistant medical examiner testified that Ms. Riedweg had a total of fifty-three wounds including bruises, scrapes, pick marks, cuts, and stab wounds, and that her throat was slashed. Id. at 461. The assistant medical examiner further testified that
[t]here were five defensive wounds to the hands, three wounds that penetrated the trachea, three that damaged and collapsed the lungs, two that cut the exterior jugular vein, one that cut the liver, one that struck a vertebra, and one that cut a spinal nerve. [The assistant medical examiner] testified that Riedweg could have remained conscious for four to six minutes after her lungs collapsed, and she could have survived from four to ten minutes. Electrical activity could have continued for a few minutes more, perhaps ten to fifteen minutes. Multiple stab wounds of the torso and neck were the cause of death.
Id.
Other evidence established that several blood stains matching Ms. Riedweg’s DNA profile were found on Dessaure’s shorts. Id. Dessaure’s footprint was discovered in Ms. Riedweg’s kitchen, and Dessaure’s semen was found on a towel in her bathroom and on a piece of fabric from her bedroom comforter. Id.
In imposing the death sentence, the trial court found four aggravating circumstances: (1) the crime was committed while Dessaure was previously convicted of a felony and under community control; (2) Dessaure had been previously convicted of a felony involving the use or threat of violence; (3) the crime was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel; and (4) the crime was committed during a burglary. Id. at 464. The trial court found no statutory mitigating circumstances, but noted the following nonstatutory mitigating circumstances:
(1) Dessaure was twenty-one years old (some weight); (2) Dessaure has the capacity and desire to be a loving parent (little weight); (3) Dessaure’s family life was dysfunctional while he was growing up, his parents abandoned him to be raised by his grandmother, and his older brother died in a traffic accident (some weight); (4) Dessaure has the capacity to form personal relationships (little weight); and (5) Dessaure was well behaved in court (little weight).
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/fl-supreme-court/1540341.html
