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Rafsky sentenced to life, plus 200 years
CHIPLEY - In a likely bid to prevent a jury's death sentence recommendation, the second defendant in the 2014 brutal murder of Washington County retired game warden James "Coon" Shores pled no contest Monday before Circuit Judge Christopher N. Patterson.
Testimony indicated Shores found Dillon Scott Rafsky and his co-defendant, Zachary Taylor Wood, on family property after they had burglarized Shore's old homestead near Johnson Road in Chipley.
Shores, 66, was found after the Alabama Bureau of Investigation notified the Washington County Sheriff's Office that a vehicle connected to the shooting of an Alabama state trooper was registered to Shores. The trooper in that case, Marcel Phillips, was treated and released from a Dothan, Alabama hospital for injuries obtained during a gunfight that took place when he stopped the Rafsky and Wood for speeding.
Officers discovered Shores' body while performing a welfare check of his property.
According to reports, Wood and Rafsky were "out mudding" in a Jeep stolen from Woods' girlfriend when they bogged down near Shores' home. The suspects ransacked the house in what then Washington County Sheriff Bobby Haddock referred to as a "crime of opportunity" and were trying to free the Jeep when Shores arrived and told them to get off the property.
The two men then followed Shores to the back of the house, where they beat him with a garden hoe, bound his hands and feet with a chain, and left him face down in the grass. After attempting and failing to light the still-living Shores on fire, the men killed him with a shotgun blast to the back of the head using Shores' own gun, before stealing his 2011 Toyota Camry and debit card.
Wood and Taylor were both charged with premeditated murder, burglary while armed, and robbery with a firearm.
Wood was convicted and sentenced to death in 2016, but that sentence was later remanded in a Florida Supreme Court decision which stated Wood was "disproportionately sentenced." Wood is now facing a life sentence without parole.
Following Rafsky's plea, Judge Patterson sentenced Rafsky to serve life without the possibility of parole for the murder and 100 years each for the charges of burglary while armed and robbery with a firearm, both of which fall under Florida's 10-12-Life law. The sentences will run consecutively.
Shores family told the Washington County News on Monday that the sentencing of the final defendant in their loved one's death did not bring the closure some may assume.
"Many will see today's sentencing as closure; however, it is only closure for the defendant, not the family," said Shores' niece, Debbi Shores Whitaker, on behalf of the family.
"The closure which happened in our life took place on April 19, 2014, when our loved one was brutally murdered. It was a closure that opened up a world of hurt, anger, and inconceivable loss. What we had hoped would be two death sentences has now turned into two life sentences. To give life to those who took a life, in the way in which it was taken, is incomprehensible."
"Since the day this tragedy occurred, we have seen some portions of our justice system at their very best - the Washington County Sheriff's Department, the State Attorney's Office, the unanimous jury, and the Honorable Judge Christopher Patterson," she added. "But, unfortunately, we have also seen the justice system at its worst - through the Florida Supreme Court, who remanded a death penalty for one of the defendants in this case. For our family, we must now move forward, knowing that the events in the past, the murder as well as the subsequent sentencing, cannot be altered or changed, and for that, we are forever sorrowful."
Rafsky's family declined a request for comment.
http://www.chipleypaper.com/news/201...plus-200-years
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