Tuesday’s hearing was the last before Greider will sentence Damas on Friday, either to life in prison or to death.
Raising his head from the defense table, Mesac Damas, who pleaded guilty last month to killing his wife and five children, wrote a note on lined yellow paper to Collier Circuit Judge Christine Greider on Tuesday morning.
“Go ahead, continue your work, may my blood be upon your shoulders,” he wrote, signing the note “COG” — Child of God.
Tuesday’s hearing was the last before Greider will sentence Damas on Friday, either to life in prison or to death. Damas waived his right to a jury when he pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree murder in September.
As he has done on occasion, Damas refused to talk or really participate in any way as prosecutors and his defense attorneys made their closing arguments. And he refused to talk when asked repeatedly by Greider to clarify whether he wanted her to consider the mitigating evidence and testimony presented in his favor Monday by his court-appointed lawyers.
Ultimately, Greider ruled that Damas’ silence meant he had been clear in September when he waived his right to have evidence presented on his behalf. His lawyers disagreed with Greider’s decision.
“Without him answering in a criminal court, you can’t assume he’s agreeing with anything that’s being done here,” said James Ermacora, one of Damas’ two lawyers.
In her closing argument to Greider, which lasted over an hour, Chief Assistant State Attorney Amira Fox laid out the evidence against Damas to prove aggravating factors — among them that the September 2009 killings were heinous and atrocious, as well as cold, calculated and premeditated — that would allow Greider to impose a death sentence.
There were receipts for the filet knife Damas bought at Walmart and later used to slash each family member’s throat, video of him buying the knife and the knife itself — its blade bent in the violent attacks.
Most powerfully, Fox used Damas’ own words against him, reading long passages directly from Damas’ statement to a Collier County Sheriff’s Office detective, detailing what she called a “murderous rampage.” Damas plugged his ears with white tissues during her presentation, and dabbed his eyes.
In his statement to the detective, Damas talked about being outside his family’s home the night of the killing, watching his wife, Guerline Dieu Damas, for 2½ hours before entering. He talked about how he fought with her, bound her with duct tape and worried about her alerting the neighbors before killing her.
He told the detective about going upstairs and methodically moving his children — Megan, 3, Maven, 5, and Marven, 6 — from one bedroom to another before killing them. He talked about pausing before he killed his 1-year-old daughter Morgan and his oldest son, Michzach, 9. He considered letting them live.
Fox questioned testimony from a defense expert who said Damas believed his mother-in-law had put a curse or a hex on him before the killings.
“It’s beyond reason to think that the defendant’s mother-in-law would put a curse on him that would have him kill her daughter and her five grandchildren,” Fox said.
Prosecutors, she said, proved their case against Damas.
“We would ask the court to impose a sentence of death on the defendant,” Fox said.
Ermacora questioned whether the children’s deaths were premeditated and argued that Damas was not thinking clearly at the time of the killings. His client, he said, has brain abnormalities and a history of mental illness. A defense expert Monday suggested Damas’ brain defects are consistent with schizophrenia.
“Mr. Damas throughout the proceedings has exhibited bizarre behavior, and you almost don’t need to be an expert to realize there must be something wrong with Mr. Damas,” Ermacora said.
Ermacora asked Greider for a life sentence, rather than death, as Damas has said he wants. Greider said she cannot simply rubber stamp Damas’ request.
With Damas waiving his right to have evidence presented on his behalf, it’s unclear exactly what defense evidence Greider will consider when making her decision. Greider allowed Ermacora and his co-counsel to present their witnesses Monday, even though Damas had said he didn’t want them.
“Despite him saying it at times he wants the death penalty, I’m saying to you, your honor, that you do not have to sentence Mr. Damas to death despite all these aggravators,” Ermacora said.
If Greider does sentence Damas to death Friday, he will be the second person from Collier County on death row, joining Brandy Jennings, who was sentenced to death in 1996 for killing three people during a holdup at a Naples area Cracker Barrel.