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Case against Onstott takes hit

With a confession thrown out, his trial on murder charges is delayed indefinitely.

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published March 6, 2007

TAMPA - A judge on Monday threw out David Lee Onstott's confession to killing 13-year-old Sarah Lunde because the Hillsborough sheriff's detectives who interrogated him ignored his multiple requests for an attorney.

The decision delays indefinitely the start of next week's trial and leaves prosecutors scrambling to save a case that was already struggling.

The Onstott case is the second high-profile murder prosecution in recent west-central Florida history to be dealt such a blow. John Couey, on trial in Miami this week, saw his original confession tossed last year on the grounds that investigators denied him an attorney during questioning about Jessica Lunsford's death.

Prosecutors said Monday that they would immediately appeal Hillsborough Circuit Judge Ronald Ficarrotta's ruling. The judge postponed the trial.

"That is an indication to you of just how damaging this ruling is to the state's case," Stetson College of Law professor Charles Rose said of the appeal. "This is the perfect storm of the Couey trial without the evidence."

Unlike in the Couey case, the state has no physical evidence against Onstott, who is charged with sexual battery and first-degree murder in the Ruskin teenager's April 2005 death.

But the ruling Monday did not completely gut the case.

Prosecutors can still introduce statements that 38-year-old Onstott made to his mother, a jail nurse and a detention deputy after authorities found Lunde's partially clothed body in an abandoned fish farm pond not far from her home.

The detention deputy testified at a hearing last month that Onstott described to him in detail how he killed the girl. Onstott made potentially incriminating statements, though not an outright admission, to his mother and the nurse.

He also told a detective that he wanted to die.

Ficarrotta did not agree with Assistant Public Defender John Skye that Onstott was improperly detained on old misdemeanor warrants out of Michigan. The judge did, however, criticize four investigators for continuing to question Onstott over five days even though he had asked for an attorney.

Finally allowing Onstott a brief cell phone call to then-attorney Pat Courtney on April 16, 2005 - the day Lunde's body was found and he confessed - was not enough, Ficarrotta said.

The judge decided that the bulk of the emotional meeting recorded by detectives between Onstott and his mother on April 16 was admissible at trial. Refugia Whitten said she was led to believe the meeting would be private, but Ficarrotta did not find her to be a credible witness.

Jurors will hear a tape of Onstott crying, blowing his nose and making statements including, "Sometimes I feel like I'm possessed."

A second part of their conversation was suppressed because one detective told the mother and son that authorities were watching but couldn't hear, thereby giving them an expectation of privacy from that point forward.

Ficarrotta previously excluded incriminating statements that Onstott made to his cell mate. Prosecutors also are not allowed to tell jurors about Onstott's 1995 sexual battery conviction.

Members of the local legal community don't see much hope for a successful appeal by the state. But their opinions differed on whether prosecutors might offer Onstott a plea deal or a free pass.

"The prudent course would be to dismiss the charges and let him go" until more evidence can be found, Rose said. "I would not hang my hat as a state prosecutor ... with nothing other than some spontaneous statements that are general in nature, that seem to indicate guilt but don't indicate guilt about what."

Tampa defense attorney Brian Gonzalez expects both the state and defense to stay on course for a trial, which now could be months or even a year away, pending the outcome of the appeal.

"Both parties have dug their heels into the sand," Gonzalez said. "We probably feel in our hearts that he committed this crime, but unfortunately the state may not have the evidence to prove him guilty."

Colleen Jenkins can be reached at cjenkins@sptimes.com or 813 226-3337.

Fast Facts:

What's in

- Onstott tells a detective that he wants state help to shorten his life.

- Some of a conversation with his mother, Refugia Whitten. "It's like my soul is just angry. It's like a volcano. It just erupts and then it goes away."

- Observations by Robert Pollay, his cell mate, who said Onstott went white as a ghost when another inmate brought up the missing girl. "Did they find her body?" Onstott asked.

- Onstott's conversation with a detention deputy, who said Onstott described killing Sarah Lunde.

What's out

- Onstott's confession to Hillsborough sheriff's detectives.

- Evidence about Onstott's 1995 sexual battery conviction.

- Some incriminating statements made to his mother.

- Incriminating statements made to Pollay.

[Last modified March 6, 2007, 01:01:30]