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Killer sentenced to death
William Deparvine arranged to buy a truck from the Tierra Verde couple and then killed them in 2003.
By CANDACE RONDEAUX
Published January 9, 2006
TAMPA - It took William Deparvine days to plot the double murder of a Tierra Verde couple two years ago.
It took a judge five minutes on Monday to pronounce his fate: Death.
Hillsborough Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett imposed the state's harshest penalty on Deparvine, 53, for killing Richard and Karla Van Dusen in November 2003. The judge issued the sentence with a just few short words, but it was all the slain couple's family needed to hear.
"I think he got what he deserved," said Richard Van Dusen's daughter, Michele Kroeger. "But nothing will bring our parents back."
During his two-week trial in August, Deparvine denied having a hand in the killings. He said he last saw the couple on Nov. 25, 2003, when the Van Dusens delivered a vintage pickup truck he purchased to his St. Petersburg apartment.
But investigators used DNA evidence and phone records to link Deparvine to the crime after the couple's bodies were found in a dirt driveway near Old Memorial Highway in northwest Hillsborough County the next day.
In August, a jury convicted Deparvine for shooting the couple at point blank range and recommended the death penalty.
[Last modified January 9, 2006, 13:48:46]
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