Deal with prosecutors takes death penalty off table
Dana Wilson, THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
MARION, OHIO -- Sara Winfield’s voice rose and her hands trembled yesterday as she eyed the man who killed her husband.
Tears fell as she told Juan Carlos Cruz that he was too much of a coward to let her husband, Brandy, a Marion County deputy sheriff, defend himself the morning Cruz shot him in his cruiser.
“I hope, eventually, that everybody forgets him as he sits in jail . . .” Mrs. Winfield said. “He doesn’t deserve to be remembered.”
Her supporters in the crowded gallery clapped and cried at the end of her statement in Marion County Common Pleas Court.
Cruz, 21, of Delaware, admitted yesterday to robbing and murdering the 29-year-old deputy last year. He avoided the death penalty as part of a plea agreement reached with prosecutors.
Deputy Winfield was found shot in his cruiser in the early morning of Oct. 14 along Rt. 423, south of Marion.
Marion police officers arrested Cruz the following day. A grand jury indicted him Oct. 21.
Yesterday, Cruz pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated murder with two capital specifications and one count of robbery with a firearm specification.
As part of the agreement, prosecutors dropped a kidnapping charge.
Cruz showed little emotion as he waived his right to a jury trial and signed the paperwork.
After deliberating briefly, a three-judge panel sentenced Cruz to life in prison with a chance for parole after 43 years. Judges Robert Davidson, William Finnegan and Thomas Jenkins, all of whom serve Marion County, were unanimous in their decision.
Prosecutor Jim Slagle said that before meeting with Cruz’s attorneys last week, he had anticipated that the case would go to trial. It was scheduled to start Sept. 16 and expected to last four weeks.
“This is not a case I expected to be resolved,” Slagle said after the hearing. “We believe we had a strong case.”
He said the Winfield family seemed satisfied with the plea agreement.
One of Cruz’s attorneys told the judges that his client emigrated illegally from Mexico to the United States and “has lived a life few of us in this courtroom can imagine.”
He said Cruz is the father of two young children.
“He now will live at least 43 years in a cage,” Greg Meyers said.
“This is hardly a case where he is getting off but, rather, a case where he is admitting his guilt.”
Slagle said that, through negotiations, he learned details from Cruz about the slaying, including exactly where the shooting occurred -- on Bethlehem Road.
Cruz also told prosecutors that Winfield had picked him up along the roadside and offered to drive him to his van, which had run out of gas.
Winfield was seated in the driver’s seat of his cruiser and the car was stopped when Cruz shot him from behind with a 9 mm handgun, Slagle said.
Witnesses told investigators they saw Cruz drinking beer and tequila at a bar in Marion in the hours before the slaying.
Cruz’s motive, however, remains unclear, Slagle said. “Things happened pretty quickly.”
When Rick Winfield, Brandy’s father, addressed Cruz yesterday, he held up photos of his son’s two young children.
He told him Landon and Tyler will never see their dad again.
“Brandy was just trying to be a good guy.”