ROBERT A. CONSALVO | Robbery/Murder of Lorraine Pezza in 1993 | on DR FL for 30 years | Used unemployment and abuse as a child as mitigating factors in the Death Penalty phase of his trial | ALS | SEALED

Robert A. Consalvo. Autographed Card, Signed. Handwritten, Baronial (4.25 × 6.25 envelope). Raiford, FL. Pmk: 2006. Content unknown. SEALED.

• Classification: Murderer

• Characteristics: Robbery

• Number of victims: 1

• Date of murder: September 27, 1991

• Date of arrest: October 3, 1991

• Date of birth: May 25, 1962 | age 61

• Victim profile: Lorraine Pezza

• Method of murder: Stabbing with knife

• Location: Broward County, Florida, USA

• Status: Sentenced to death on November 17, 1993ⁱ (on DR for 30 yrs)

On October 3, 1991, at approximately 12:40 am, Nancy Murray observed a man wearing a brown towel over his head cut a screen door and enter the residence of Myrna Walker, who lived downstairs from the victim. Murray called the police and Consalvo was apprehended while burglarizing the apartment. Fresh pry marks were found on a sliding glass door along with a cut porch screen. Assorted jewelry was found lying on the bedroom floor with a screwdriver and towel. When police searched Consalvo, they found checkbooks belonging to Pezza, as well as to Walker, and a small pocketknife. Consalvo was arrested and subsequent to his arrest, Consalvo repeatedly asked the police what his bond would be for this burglary offense and how quickly he could be released.

That same day, Detective Doethlaff went to [the victim, Lorraine] Pezza’s apartment to investigate why Consalvo was in possession of her checkbook. Doethlaff observed fresh pry marks on Pezza’s front door between the deadbolt and the doorknob. When no one answered the door, which was locked, Doethlaff left a business card at the door requesting Pezza to contact the police. That evening, after Pezza’s family had tried unsuccessfully for several days to reach her, Eva Bell, a social worker for the Broward Mental Health Division, went to the victim’s apartment to check on her. While at the apartment, Bell encountered Pezza’s next-door neighbor, Consalvo’s mother, Jeanne Corropolli. Corropolli, who lived with Consalvo, related to Ms. Bell that her son had been arrested earlier that day (for the burglary of Mrs. Walker’s apartment). After receiving no response at Pezza’s apartment, Bell contacted the police. At 7:16 pm Officer Westberry responded to Bell’s request to check on Pezza. He knocked on Pezza’s apartment door without getting a response and noticed Doethlaff’s business card was still in the door jamb. The officer went back to his patrol car to complete his report. Bell, who was still in Corropolli’s apartment, testified that shortly after the officer left the apartment, Corropolli was on the phone. Corropolli hung up the phone and became hysterical. Corropolli told Bell that her son, Robert Consalvo, said that he was “involved in a murder.”

Corropolli testified that when she told her son the police were next door, he replied, “Oh, shit.” Bell immediately related this information to Officer Westberry, who then forced open Pezza’s apartment door and discovered her decomposing body in the apartment. The porch screens of Pezza’s apartment were cut.

At 10:10 pm, Detective Gill of the Broward Sheriff’s Office contacted Consalvo at the Pompano Jail Annex. After advising Consalvo of his rights, Gill notified Consalvo that they wanted to speak to him about Pezza’s checks being found on his person at the time of his arrest. Consalvo responded by stating: “You are not going to pin the stabbing on me.” At this time, Gill did not know that Pezza had been stabbed.

At 2:30 am the next day, Detective Gill effectively arrested Consalvo by filing an add charge against him for the murder of Lorraine Pezza. Consalvo had not yet been released on bond for the burglary charge. When a search warrant was executed on Corropolli’s apartment, the police found a bloody towel in a dresser in Consalvo’s bedroom. Subsequent DNA testing matched the blood on the towel with the victim’s blood. In a statement to the police, Consalvo’s mother confirmed that her son had in fact called her from the county jail and had advised her that he might be implicated in a homicide. She further informed police that she had found a towel in her son’s room with blood on it.

While incarcerated in the Broward County Jail, Consalvo made inculpatory statements to a fellow inmate named William Palmer. Consalvo told Palmer that he killed Pezza after she caught him burglarizing her apartment and said she would call the police. When she started to yell for help, Consalvo stabbed her. Lorraine Pezza was stabbed three times with five additional superficial puncture wounds. The fatal wound was to the left side of the chest.

On February 11, 1993, appellant was convicted of armed burglary and the first-degree murder of Lorraine Pezza. The jury recommended the death sentence by a vote of eleven to one. The trial court found two aggravating factors: (1) the capital felony was committed while the defendant was engaged in the commission of a burglary and (2) the capital felony was committed for the purpose of avoiding or preventing a lawful arrest. The court found no statutory mitigating circumstances. As for nonstatutory mitigating circumstances it accorded the following “very little weight”: (1) appellant’s employment history and (2) appellant’s abusive childhood. Because the “mitigating factors have been given very little weight and they in no way offset the aggravating factors,” the trial court found the death sentence “fully supported by the record.”ⁱⁱ

Archiving Protocol:

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• White Backing Board—Acid Free

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