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He raped a 95-year-old woman who died four months later. The judge says the man's history of violent crime prompted a longer sentence.
By CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 12, 2000
NEW PORT RICHEY -- No one could prove Oscar Blackwell's rape of a 95-year-old Holiday woman precipitated her death four months later. But for many familiar with the October 1998 attack, there seemed little doubt it crippled her will to live.
"You may not have legally murdered that woman, but, Mr. Blackwell, you killed her spirit just as surely as you sit here today," Circuit Court Judge Stanley Mills told the convict Friday morning, sentencing him to 30 years in state prison.
Blackwell, 60, a former mechanic, was convicted in December of involuntary sexual battery, largely on the basis of a minute blood spot -- found on the seat of his Ford Ranchero -- that a new form of DNA analysis linked to the victim. Blackwell had followed her home to the Crestridge Gardens subdivision after a card game at the clubhouse there.
By all accounts, the attack psychologically destroyed a smart, sprightly woman who loved biographies, crossword puzzles and painting in oils. A widow since 1989, physically tiny, she stood no chance of fending off the muscular Blackwell, said Clarise Freese, a rape counselor, who stood before the judge to read a statement from the victim's son.
After the rape, the statement said, her decline was rapid. Seven days later, she had a heart attack. She was too frightened to return home and too ill to live with family in California, as she wanted.
Several months later, her heart worse still, she was placed in hospice care and died just before her 96th birthday.
"From the moment he entered her life, she was never free again," Freese said.
Prosecutor Mike Halkitis argued Blackwell should be treated as a violent career criminal, pointing to Blackwell's 1983 conviction for attempted armed robbery and conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Mills agreed, calling Blackwell the "poster child" for the label.
That boosted Blackwell's sentence from a possible 15 years for the crime up to 30 years. He likely will serve most of that sentence because of a state law that says an inmate must serve 85 percent of his sentence, according to lawyers on both sides.
Mills praised the victim as a "shining example" of someone who didn't let old age sap her zest for living.
"I feel cheated at not having had the opportunity to have met her," Mills told Blackwell. "How you could have possibly picked her is beyond me."
Mills said he regretted the law didn't allow him to give Blackwell life in prison.
Outside the courtroom, Irma Jansen, 70, the victim's neighbor, said: "It's just a shame he didn't get life. What in the world did he have in his mind, to attack that little woman?"
"He had a mother," said Evelyn Jordan, 87, a New Port Richey resident who attended the sentencing. "He must have had some relative that he loved."
Defense attorney Sam Williams said the case would be appealed. One of the arguments, he said, would be that a state witness revealed during the trial that Blackwell had served prison time.
"You can look a jury in the eye, and the minute they know the defendant is a felon, it's tough," Williams said.
-- Staff writer Christopher Goffard covers courts in west Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6236 or (800) 333-7505, extension 6236. His e-mail address is goffard@sptimes.com.