Two men convicted of killing six people in Deltona in 2004 in one of Central Florida’s most notorious mass killings are set to find out from a judge if they will once again face the death penalty, or get life in prison.
Troy Victorino and Jerone Hunter had their death penalties thrown out after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2016 said Florida’s death penalty system was unconstitutional. Both convicts’ death penalty sentences came from juries that were not unanimous.
A jury in May this year recommended they be given the death penalty during resentencing hearings.
The two are scheduled to return to court in front of Judge Dawn Nichols at the Volusia County Courthouse at 9 a.m.
In July they participated in a Spencer hearing with Hunter in the courtroom and Victorino present from a jailhouse feed. Their lawyers presented evidence that could help sway the judge to not follow the jury recommendation, but instead impose a sentence of life imprisonment.
The court heard testimony from a neuropsychologist as well as from the aunt of Hunter who talked about his childhood.
These undated photos provided by the families show Michelle Nathan; Jonathan Gleason; Anthony Vega, and Roberto Gonzalez, from left, who along with Erin Belanger and Francisco Ayo Roman were killed in Deltona, Fla., in 2004. Troy Victorino, 29, Michael Salas and Jerone Hunter, both 20, accused of killing them in a revenge slaying over an Xbox video game system, were convicted of first-degree murder in St. Augustine, Fla. Tuesday, July 25, 2006. The jury of seven women and five men deliberated about six hours before returning its verdict.
The two had been convicted in 2006 of first-degree murder in the deaths of Jonathan Gleason, 17; Michelle Nathan, 19; Erin Belanger, 22; Roberto Gonzalez, 28; Francisco Ayo Roman, 30; and Anthony Vega, 34. Two other suspects in the murders, Michael Salas and Robert Cannon, remain in prison with life sentences.
All four were accused of beating the six victims to death along with a dog with aluminum baseball bats inside a home on Telford Lane in August 2004. The case was dubbed by media as the “Xbox murders” because one of the motives according to prosecutors behind the crime was Victorino retrieving an Xbox from the house claiming it had been stolen.
All the victims died of blunt force trauma to the head, but had also suffered stab wounds, the medical examiner’s office said.
