DELAND -- After hearing Leo Visco's story about how he tried to end the pain of his suffering wife, Volusia County grand jurors found enough evidence to issue a first-degree murder indictment.

Visco, 80, didn't flinch when the indictment was read Thursday in Circuit Court. He has said he killed Eva Visco, 74, with a pistol shot to the head on Dec. 26 but then couldn't bring himself to carry out the rest of their pact to take their lives.

When the indictment was read by a clerk to a courtroom crowded with grand jurors and Visco's friends and family, Visco sat seemingly emotionless as tears welled in the eyes of his son Leonard, seated with him. Neighbors and friends dabbed their eyes with handkerchiefs or cried outright.

The trial will probably be in four or five months. Assistant State Attorney Raul Zambrano said he is unlikely to seek the death penalty if Visco is convicted.

Visco has said his wife of 24 years was suffering from a litany of ailments. None was terminal but so many were painful and debilitating, Visco said, that he had to feed, bathe and dress her and get her on and off a portable toilet.

He said she begged him for months to end her life and that he finally agreed to kill her in her bed and end his own life, too.

Experts testify on mental state of quadruple killer

SHALIMAR -- A Persian Gulf War veteran was mentally ill and unable to appreciate the criminality of his actions when he killed his girlfriend and her three children with a shotgun, a defense psychiatrist testified Thursday. Two prosecution psychologists disagreed.

A jury last week convicted former Army Ranger Jeffrey Hutchinson of four counts of first-degree murder for the September 1998 slayings of Renee Flaherty, 32, and her children Geoffrey, 9, Amanda, 7, and Logan, 4, in the Crestview area home they all shared.

The 12 jurors returned for the trial's penalty phase Thursday but were excused after Hutchinson waived his right to a sentencing recommendation from the panel. Penalty phase testimony was presented instead to Circuit Judge G. Robert Barron, who will sentence Hutchinson on Feb. 6 after hearing arguments next Thursday.

Barron has two choices: sentence Hutchinson to death or to life in prison without parole. A finding that the defendant was mentally ill could mitigate against a death sentence.

Defense witness Dr. Vincent Dillon of Pensacola said Hutchinson, 38, suffered from alcohol intoxication and a bipolar mental disorder when he committed the killings. People with bipolar ailments suffer mood swings between mania and depression.

Two psychologists called by the prosecution, James Larson of Pensacola and Harry McClaren of Quincy, testified that Hutchinson suffered from a personality disorder, not a mental illness, and had the capacity to understand the criminality of his conduct.

Jacksonville U’s interim president now permanent

JACKSONVILLE -- David L. Harlow, who has served as interim president since June, was named Thursday as the permanent president of Jacksonville University.

Harlow, a retired Navy rear admiral, was unanimously approved by trustees to become the eighth president of the private, independent institution.

From 1990 to 1999, Harlow served as executive vice president, dean and chancellor of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn. He was once commander of all of Jacksonville's varied naval bases.

He replaces Paul Tipton, who left JU in May after five years.

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Lucy Morgan

From the Times state desk