USA - Florida. Judge William H. Hallman III sentenced Bill Paul Marquardt, 36, white, to death

Sumter County Judge William H. Hallman III sentenced Bill Paul Marquardt, 36, white, to death for the slayings of Margarita Ruiz, 72, and her daughter Esperanza Wells, 42 in their home on March 15, 2000. A Sumter jury in October found Marquardt guilty of the 1st-degree murders, but Marquardt waived his right to have that same jury deliberate on a possible death sentence. Marquardt was serving 75 years in a Wisconsin mental institution for mutilating animals when he was charged with these homicides. Sumter County sheriff's detectives worked the case for six years with no leads until Marquardt was arrested and acquitted in his mother's death in Wisconsin. Blood on a knife found on Marquardt during that arrest tied him to the killings of Ruiz and Wells. Judge William Hallman ruled his mental health condition was outweighed by the heinous and atrocious nature of the killings.