DeSantis signs death warrant for Brevard killer Chadwick Willacy
Chadwick Willacy was convicted in 1990 for the death of his Palm Bay neighbor. His execution on April 21 will be Florida’s sixth execution this year.
About a week before she was murdered, Marlies Mae Sather spent her last happy day with her loved ones.
It was her son John’s 32nd birthday, and the family had gathered at his home in the Orlando area. The family feasted on homemade chicken, dumplings and cheesecake before Sather drove more than an hour back to her home in Palm Bay on Florida’s central coast.
“I said, ‘Mom, I love you,’ and she said, ‘John, I love you too,'” John Sather, now 68, recently told USA TODAY in a tearful interview. “Those were the last words I said to my mother.”
On September 5, 1990, Marlies Sather encountered a neighbor who had broken into her home. A neighbor, Chadwick Willacy, then 24, decided not to testify, according to court documents.
Court records say Willacy beat Sazer, strangled her, robbed her and then set her on fire while she was still alive. An autopsy on the 56-year-old grandmother revealed that she died from smoke inhalation.
More than 36 years later, the state of Florida plans to execute Willacy by lethal injection on Tuesday, April 21st. If the execution goes ahead, Willacy would be the eighth death row inmate in the United States so far this year, and the fifth in Florida as the state continues its record-breaking pace of executions.
Willacy has always denied murder, but has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution, arguing that Florida’s lethal injection process is shrouded in secrecy. Meanwhile, Seiser’s only son is scheduled to attend the execution and says he is ready for the legal adventure to end.
John Sather said, “I want to confirm that the director has passed away.” “I want to make sure my mom gets justice for someone who came in and took her life within seconds.”
Here’s what you need to know about the execution, including who Marlies May Sazer is and how Willacy plans to escape the death chamber.
What happened to Marlies May Sather?
On September 5, 1990, Marlies Mae Sather was still grieving the death of her husband, who had died of liver cancer six weeks earlier. She was returning home from work and scheduled a meeting with someone interested in purchasing her late husband’s car, according to court records.
Instead, Sather broke into a robbery in progress. Not only that, she also knew who was robbing her. His 24-year-old neighbor, Chadwick Willacy, said he had been mowing the lawn several times.
Willacy showed no mercy to her, according to court records.
According to court records, Willacy beat Seiser, tied him up and strangled him with a cord until he gave her his PIN number. He then got in her car and went to her bank and withdrew money from her account before returning to her house to finish what he started.
He disabled the smoke detector, doused her with gasoline, placed a fan at her feet and set her on fire, according to court records.
Among the evidence used against Willacy in court: his fingerprints were found on a fan, his girlfriend found Sather’s checkbook in Willacy’s trash can, bloodstains matching Sather’s blood type were found on clothes in the home, and he had numerous other items belonging to her, court records state.
A jury subsequently found Willacy guilty of first-degree murder, burglary, burglary, and arson, and the judge, on the jury’s recommendation, sentenced him to death. His death sentence was later reversed, but a jury recommended the death penalty again in 1997, and another judge agreed.
Who is Merlin May Sather?
Marlis Mae Bakke was born in Clarkfield, Minnesota, the daughter of an electrician and a schoolteacher, and fell in love with Dick Sather.
The couple married in 1953 and had two daughters and a son. Dick’s work didn’t pay well, so in 1966 Murray went to work at Rock Island Arsenal, a U.S. Army installation in Illinois, where his work included test-firing M-16 rifles, his son said.
Marlies went on to earn two degrees, which he earned while continuing to climb the military ladder. She eventually became a contract specialist at Orlando Naval Training Center and a government management contract employee in Palm Bay, her son said.
During that time, Marlies was a devoted wife and mother and worked hard to ensure that her children never realized they didn’t have much money.
“It was a wonderful family life,” John Sather said. “We were always very poor, but I never knew that as a child.”
John Sather said Dick and Marley were overjoyed when their daughter, Princess Diana, had a daughter of their own and they became grandparents. And when Princess Diana’s second daughter was born blind, Marlis learned Braille.
Dick was diagnosed with liver cancer in May 1990 and died two months later. In August 1990, the family threw a modest 32nd birthday party for John, but Marlies was determined to make it special.
“I told her I wanted a harmonica and darts,” John Sather said. “And she went to eight different stores looking for the right harmonica and darts.”
Ten days later, his mother was murdered.
What does Chadwick Willacy stand for?
Chadwick Willacy has been fighting for the release of records regarding the use of lethal injection, a controversial method of execution as Florida executes record numbers of inmates.
Willacy’s lawyers argue that Florida did not follow its own execution procedures and therefore violated the U.S. Constitution.
The court rejected Willacy’s request to halt the execution until the documents are released. Mr. Willacy has appealed the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In February, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor called Florida’s record on lethal injections “deeply disturbing,” saying recent executions may have included the use of expired drugs or other drugs that shouldn’t have been used, incorrect doses of drugs or record-keeping errors that could hide other problems.
“By continuing to keep its executions in secrecy, Florida undermines both the integrity of Florida’s own execution process and, in some cases, the ability of this court to ensure compliance with the state’s constitutional obligations,” she wrote.
Florida argued that the state Department of Corrections is “entitled to a presumption that it is performing its duties properly.”
“Mr. Willacy’s presumption to the contrary is insufficient to raise a challenge to a color-codeable method of execution, which requires not just an alleged deviation from protocol, but a substantial and imminent risk that the method used is certain or very likely to cause serious illness or unnecessary suffering,” the state argued in a recent court filing.
When is the next execution in the United States?
The two states plan to execute inmates on the same day, April 30th.
The state of Texas plans to execute James Broadnax, who killed two Christian music producers in the Dallas suburb of Garland in 2008. The state of Florida plans to execute James Ernest Hitchcock, who raped and murdered his 13-year-old step-niece Cynthia Driggers in Orlando in 1976.
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter covering cold case investigations and capital punishment for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat
