John Jefferson
Zephen Xaver, inset, has a sentencing hearing in Florida on whether he should be sentenced to death or life in prison. A judge admonished witness Marshall Blackmon, in black shirt, for staring him down. (Xaver: Highlands County Jail; Screenshot: WFLA/YouTube)
While testifying at a sentencing hearing, a former gun store employee did not hide his disdain for the man who murdered five people at a Florida bank.
Jurors in Sebring, a small town in the middle of the Sunshine State, are deciding whether 27-year-old Zephen Xaver should be sentenced to death or life in prison for a 2019 shooting at a SunTrust bank. Xaver walked into the bank and murdered four employees and one customer in January 2019. He claimed voices told him to shoot the people.
Having already pleaded guilty to five counts of first-degree murder, the case is now going through the sentencing phase. One of the witnesses to testify Wednesday was Marshall Blackmon, the former employee at Boom Booms Guns & Ammo in Sebring who sold Xaver the gun used in the murders. Video from the hearing taken by Tampa NBC affiliate WFLA showed Blackmon staring down Xaver even before a court deputy swore him in for his testimony.
When he got on the witness stand he continued to eye Xaver and shake his head. This was a no-no, according to Judge Angela Cowden, who removed the jury from the courtroom.
“You were staring someone down and you do not have the right to do that. You need to stop that. The jury does not need to see any witness doing that kind of behavior,” the judge reportedly said.
The judge dismissed the jury for the day. Xaver’s attorneys asked for a mistrial, but Cowden reportedly denied the request.
WFLA interviewed Blackmon outside the courthouse.
“Ruined my life,” he told the TV station. “He took five lives away from five people, five families, five women. Coward.”
Blackmon said he realized he sold Xaver the gun after police identified him as the shooter. Xaver did not exhibit any concerning behavior that would have led Blackmon to stop the sale. He said he felt “swindled.”
“You’re going to look at me and I’m going to stare you down and you’re going to know,” he told WFLA.
He went on to say:
“He don’t deserve to live, plain and simple. He don’t deserve to live. He don’t deserve to be here right now, and I wanted to stare him down. He don’t deserve to be here,” Blackmon said.
The victims were identified as: SunTrust employees Debra Cook, 54, Marisol Lopez, 55, Jessa Montague, 31, Ana Piñon-Williams, 37, and customer Cynthia Watson, 65.
The sentencing hearing is continuing.
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