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'Hard cash' drove murder plot, prosecutor says as retrial starts

A man again faces a possible death sentence for allegedly killing a woman for $17,000.

By TOM ZUCCO
Published May 11, 2005

TAMPA - Assistant State Attorney Scott Harmon gathered his notes and came straight to the point.

The death of Thelma Royston was a brutal and vicious murder, he told 12 jurors in his opening remarks Tuesday in Hillsborough Circuit Court. She was stabbed repeatedly, shot in the head three times, and left in a heap inside a horse barn at her Odessa ranch.

Why?, he asked. "Cold, hard cash." he said.

For several minutes, Harmon laid the groundwork for the state's prosecution of Michael Mordenti on charges he was the triggerman in a $17,000 murder-for-hire plot that ended with Royston's murder in June 1989.

Mordenti, 63, a former St. Petersburg used-car dealer, was convicted of Royston's murder and sentenced to death in 1991. He spent 14 years on death row.

But the Florida Supreme Court granted him a new trial in December after finding prosecutors withheld crucial evidence.

Mordenti's second trial began Monday, and the state is again seeking the death penalty.

Harmon told jurors Tuesday that in the spring of 1989, Mordenti's ex-wife, Gail, told Mordenti of a man named Larry Royston who wanted his wife dead and was willing to pay $10,000, a sum he later upped to $17,000.

Mordenti, according to Harmon, replied, "For that kind of money, I'll do it myself."

Harmon said that several hours before the murder, Larry Royston and Michael Mordenti had a 13-minute cell phone conversation.

"In those 13 minutes, Thelma Royston's fate was sealed," Harmon told the jury.

Investigators got their break, Harmon said, in March 1990, when Gail Mordenti agreed to talk in exchange for immunity. She said she helped Larry Royston arrange his wife's murder, and that her ex-husband was the killer.

One small detail of what she said is a key to the prosecution's case. Harmon said Gail Mordenti told investigators Michael Mordenti confided to her that he shot Thelma Royston in the head with a .22-caliber revolver. That detail, Harmon said, was known only to investigators.

In his opening statement, defense attorney Martin McClain kept the focus on Gail Mordenti.

"All of the evidence against Michael Mordenti comes from Gail," McClain said. "For walking away from a murder, is she going to identify the right or wrong killer?

McClain said Gail Mordenti's story keeps changing, and mentioned a date book entry of her meeting with Larry Royston that contradicted earlier statements.

"Has she identified the killer?" McClain asked. "Or an innocent patsy?"

Prosecution witnesses Tuesday included Dr. Charles Diggs, who was an associate medical examiner in Hillsborough County when Thelma Royston was killed. Diggs said she was shot four times and stabbed five times. None of the wounds, he said, was defensive.

The most chilling testimony came from an official from the State Attorney's Office, who read from a statement made at the first trial by Isabel Regar, Thelma Royston's mother. Regar, now dead, lived with the Roystons and discovered her daughter's body.

Regar recounted how Larry Royston told her daughter that the lights in the horse barn next to the house were off, something he had never said before. And how when her daughter walked toward the barn, she encountered a man in the darkness.

"She called out to me, "It's all right. Tell Larry there's somebody here to talk about Bubba,' " Regar testified. Bubba was Larry Royston's horse.

Regar, 76, couldn't see well in the darkness. But she did notice the man was white, not quite as tall as her daughter, and that he wore a pink shirt.

Regar after several minutes noticed the family's Doberman pinscher barking oddly. "Something was wrong," she said.

She went to the barn, discovered her daughter, and returned to the house to call police. After placing the call, she wanted to return to her daughter.

"Larry stood at the door and said, "I don't want you going out.' " she said.

"I went out anyway."

The trial is expected to last into next week.

[Last modified May 11, 2005, 00:45:11]