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Thread: Francis Sicola Sentenced to LWOP in 2008 FL Slaying of Joseph Wido

  1. #1
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Francis Sicola Sentenced to LWOP in 2008 FL Slaying of Joseph Wido



    Man sentenced in burglary now will face murder trial

    A North Carolina man charged with killing an 82-year-old man was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison for a separate crime.

    Francis Sicola, 27, was convicted in June in the Aug. 27, 2008, armed burglary at the home of Erna and William Mack.

    Sicola still faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of Joseph Wido, who was shot by an intruder in the early hours of Aug. 28, 2008. Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty.

    The Macks and Widos lived about a mile from each other, although in different subdivisions.

    Testimony at the armed burglary trial showed Sicola went to the Macks' home about 11 p.m.

    Erna Mack, 75, said she heard a noise coming from the patio and looked through the blinds. She saw a man wearing a ski mask and holding a gun.

    The man motioned to her to unlock a sliding door. Mack screamed for her husband, causing the man to run away.

    Investigators determined the screen around the Macks' porch had been cut. Detectives said DNA testing linked Sicola to a ski mask found near the Widos' home.

    Sicola testified he went to the Macks' house because he thought a drug dealer lived there. He said he planned to break into the house to steal drugs and money. Sicola denied having a gun but said he did have a knife.

    Jurors found Sicola did not have a firearm.

    Members of Sicola's family spoke at the sentencing hearing in hopes that Pasco Circuit Judge Crockett Farnell would not impose the maximum sentence of life in prison. Sicola faced at least 62 months behind bars.
    Assistant State Attorney Eric Rosario asked Farnell to sentence Sicola to 30 years in prison, saying the defendant displayed a worrisome pattern of criminality.

    "He's very nice when he wants to be," Rosario said. "But when he goes into criminal mode, he does it in a big way."

    This won't be the first time Sicola has been imprisoned. He was just 15 when he was sentenced to 20 months for burglary and grand theft in 1998. He was released in 2000 but sent back two years later for violating probation.

    Sicola was freed again in 2005.

    The armed burglary took place only hours before someone broke into the Widos' Timber Oaks home. Investigators said the couple were awakened by an intruder in their bedroom.

    Joseph Wido, a Bronze Star recipient, told the intruder, "I can take you on."

    Sicola killed Wido with a single shot and tied up Roberta Wido, detectives said. He left her next to her husband, where she stayed until a neighbor found her 10 hours later.

    Investigators said Sicola stole money and jewelry but didn't find the one thing he was looking for: prescription drugs.

    He was arrested at his North Carolina home in January 2009 and extradited to Florida two months later.

    http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/sep/04/pa-man-sentenced-in-burglary-now-will-face-murder-/news-pasco/

  2. #2
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    Trial in killing of elderly New Port Richey man to start Monday

    Francis Sicola, charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of an 82-year-old World War II veteran, is set to face trial Monday. Prosecutors say Sicola broke into the Timber Oaks home of Joseph and Bobbe Wido while they slept early on Aug. 28, 2008. Joseph Wido woke up and confronted him, saying, "I can take you on." Sicola fatally shot him, prosecutors say, then tied up Mrs. Wido, who lay on the floor next to her dying husband until morning when she yelled out to a neighbor for help. Sicola, 28, is already serving 15 years in prison for burglarizing a house in the nearby Fox Run neighborhood earlier on the night of the murder. Bobbe Wido died last year at age 81. The couple had been married 59 years. Prosecutors had originally planned to seek the death penalty, but have decided not to do so

    http://www.tampabay.com/news/trial-i...monday/1168232

  3. #3
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    NEW PORT RICHEY — Jude Futral had waited almost three years to hear the word: Guilty.

    She had suffered from stress, feared going out. She had felt like somebody was coming up behind her. Now it was her turn to speak. She stood before the judge, a few feet from the man who had just been convicted of killing her father, Joseph Wido.

    "He devastated my family and friends,'' she said, hands trembling.

    Then she counted the other casualties: Joe's best friend who played pinochle with him; an aunt consumed by grief; the two people who discovered Joe's body; Bobbe Wido, Joe's wife of almost 60 years.

    All died before they could see justice — all before the jury came back after five hours of deliberation to convict Francis Sicola, 28, of first-degree felony murder. Circuit Judge Michael Andrews immediately sentenced him to life in prison.

    Outside the courtroom, Pasco Sheriff's Detective Jason Hatcher waited to console Futral, one of two Wido daughters, and congratulate prosecutors. Hatcher had been the lead detective on the case since neighbors discovered the Widos nearly 10 hours after Joe had been shot to death in the wee hours of Aug. 28, 2008. The masked intruder had bound Mrs. Wido with duct tape and left her next to her husband while he ransacked the house on Quimby Drive in the quiet Timber Oaks subdivision.

    As he gathered evidence at the crime scene, Hatcher went through a dresser. He saw medals and souvenirs that Joe had brought back from war with the Nazis. Joe had been a hero, earning the Bronze Star for bravery. Mrs. Wido told Hatcher how that bravery surfaced again at the end as he confronted the much shorter intruder and said, "I can take you on.'' The gunshot, just below his chest at point-blank range, killed him instantly.

    "It made me sick to my stomach,'' Hatcher said. "You go into combat, you serve your country, only to be taken down in your twilight, taken down in your own home.''

    Hatcher pledged to find the killer. And in January 2009, the trail led to Sicola, a criminal and drug abuser since childhood with 10 felony convictions. Hours before the random break-in at the Widos, Sicola had tried to burglarize a home in a nearby subdivision but was scared away. He dropped a black ski mask and DNA tests led Hatcher to arrest him in a small North Carolina town.

    Authorities never found any physical proof tying Sicola to the murder. But they were able to use the earlier burglary attempt and damning statements from Sicola's own family to arrest him. And in time, they engaged a cell phone engineer who testified that Sicola's phone either made or received calls near the Wido home at about the same time he would have committed the crime.

    The state's two star witnesses were Sicola's brother and mother.

    Christopher Sicola, 33, testified that Francis took several prescription painkillers during a family gathering on Aug. 27, 2008. He was agitated, saying he needed money to get home to North Carolina.

    "He wanted to steal stuff," Christopher said. "I thought that meant breaking into some cars … steal some money. He said break in to homes. I didn't want nothing to do with that."

    Assistant State Attorney Mike Halkitis asked Christopher what his brother said when he asked if he had shot Joe Wido.

    "Yes," the older brother swore.

    As detectives were zeroing in on Francis Sicola, they visited Donna Clancy, Sicola's mother, at her home in Regency Park. They secretly recorded the conversation.

    "He was working on my car and he said, 'I capped somebody's ass and I'm going back to North Carolina,' " Clancy said in a recording played for jurors.

    After the verdict on Thursday, Detective Hatcher thought about that first day at the crime scene and about the funeral he attended for Bobbe Wido in September. "It's been a long process,'' he said, "but finally … it's over

    http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/...family/1169254

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