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Man is guilty of double slaying

The jury apparently didn't buy the St. Petersburg man's explanation of how his blood got in the couple's Jeep.

By CANDACE RONDEAUX
Published August 4, 2005

TAMPA - William Deparvine took a big gamble when he took the stand in his murder trial this week. He wagered that if he told his side of the story, he'd be found innocent.

On Wednesday, he lost the bet.

A jury found Deparvine, 53, guilty of murdering a Tierra Verde couple more than 18 months ago. After listening to more than a week of testimony, jurors decided Deparvine's fate in three hours.

Now, he could pay with his life for shooting Richard and Karla Van Dusen in November 2003.

"If someone's going to do you wrong they're going to do you wrong; those were the defendant's words and that was his credo," said prosecutor Jay Pruner. "Tragically, for the Van Dusens, this defendant chose to do them wrong and did them wrong and led them to their deaths."

Earlier this week, Deparvine denied shooting the couple in the back of the head at point-blank range and dumping their bodies in a dirt driveway near Old Memorial Highway in northwest Hillsborough.

He said the last time he saw the Van Dusens alive was Nov. 25, 2003, the day they delivered to his St. Petersburg apartment a 1971 Chevy Cheyenne truck he'd purchased from them.

But crime lab analysts testified during the three-week trial that DNA found in the couple's abandoned, blood-spattered Jeep Cherokee the next day linked Deparvine to the murders.

Deparvine tried hard during his nearly four hours on the witness stand to explain away the evidence. He told jurors the truck ran out of gas when he and Richard Van Dusen test drove it three days earlier. He said he nicked his hand while trying to restart the truck and was probably still bleeding when he drove the Jeep back to the Van Dusens' home that day.

Deparvine also told jurors he sold a Rolex watch given to him by a former fellow inmate for $7,000 cash and used $6,500 of that to pay for the truck.

Prosecutors, however, painted a portrait of Deparvine as a calculating killer.

Pruner derided the convicted felon's version of events, saying Deparvine, a University of Detroit law school graduate, used his legal cunning to concoct a cover story to explain how his blood was left in the Jeep.

"That story is as much phantom malarkey as that Rolex," Pruner told the jury Wednesday. "Nobody in their right mind is going to let a stranger drive their personal vehicle back when you have your wife there to do it."

That argument apparently convinced the jury that Deparvine had the motive and the means to kill the Van Dusens. The jury also found Deparvine guilty of felony armed carjacking.

The jury is expected to decide today whether Deparvine should be put to death or serve a life sentence for his crimes.

The slain couple's family members and friends greeted the guilty verdict with relief and tears. They declined through a court appointed advocate to comment, pending Deparvine's sentencing.

One of Karla Van Dusen's friends, retired minister Mary Eskew Rowell, said if she were a juror, she'd vote for death. Rowell said she used to be against the death penalty but changed her mind after her friend's murder.

"I would offer to give the shot or pull the switch or whatever if I was allowed," Rowell said. "The family has suffered so much because of this."

Candace Rondeaux can be reached at 813 226-3337 or rondeaux@sptimes.com

[Last modified August 4, 2005, 14:01:08]