MELBOURNE, Fla. -- A former librarian convicted of killing six people in 1987 at two shopping centers -- because he believed his neighbors were spreading rumors that he was homosexual -- was sentenced to death Friday.
Circuit Judge John Antoon sentenced William Cruse, 61, to two death sentences and four consecutive life sentences for the April 1987 shooting spree in Palm Bay that also left 10 people wounded.
Cruse, with a scraggly gray beard and gray unkempt hair, kept his head bowed and blinked but said nothing as he was sentenced. But prior to sentencing, he glanced up as relatives of some of the victims called for the death penalty and shed a few tears as Antoon talked of the love and care Cruse had doted on his ill wife and of his mental state.
Cruse ignored shouts from reporters as he entered and left the courthouse, and held up a piece of paper to shield his face from cameras both times.
Antoon followed the recommendations of a seven-woman, five-man Polk County jury who decided April 19, 1989, following a six-week trial that Cruse should be given the death penalty. Antoon could have sentenced Cruse to life in prison with a mandatory 25 years in prison before parole.
Several of the jurors attended the sentencing, and one agreed with public defender James Russo that the frail former librarian would never be executed, but would die in prison before lengthy appeals are exhausted.
'I think most of use felt that way anyway, that he would probably never see the electric chair because he will probably die in prison,' Sharon Polk said. 'That's just the way it is.'
Vi Johnson, mother of one of the two police officers killed by Cruse, said she was pleased with the sentence and would like to attend the execution.
'I wouldlike to see him go to the chair, I really would,' she said. 'It would give me peace. That would really be the end of it.'
Adriene LaFlamme, a Palm Bay resident who witnessed the shootings, said, 'Well, I think it was well deserved. I don't like anybody being put to death, but I think he deserved it.'
Prosecutors said Cruse started the shooting spree because he believed neighbors and residents in the community just south of Melbourne were spreading rumors that he was a homosexual.
Witnesses testified Cruse suffered from mental illness, but was legally sane at the time of the massacre.
The trial was moved to Bartow in mid-Florida because of publicity in the Brevard County area.
Cruse has spent most of the time since his arrest April 24, 1987, several hours after the shootings began April 23, in a one-person cell, eating a sparse diet of fruit and cereal. Officials said Cruse followed those eating habits because he believed jailers were trying to poison him.
Brevard County Sheriff Jake Miller ordered Cruse removed from his medical isolation cell last month and put him in the general prison population, and also ordered an end to his special diet.
In addition to the six convictions for first-degree murder, the jury found Cruse guilty of 22 counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of attempted second-degree murder, kidnapping and false imprisonment.
Prosecutors contended Cruse planned the assault, pointing out that he purchased a .223 caliber, modified military semiatuomatic rifle and 100 rounds of ammunition a month before the rampage, and another 100 rounds of ammunition and six 30-round clips six days before.
The massacre began outside his home when he wounded a neighbor boy playing basketball in the driveway across the street. Armed with a revolver, a shotgun and the rifle, he drove about one mile to the neighboring shopping centers and began his shooting spree.
He held police at bay for at least six hours but before dawn the next day, he released a supermarket clerk he had been holding hostage and stumbled out of the tear-gassed store and surrendered.
Killed were police Officers Ronald Grogan, 27, and Gerald Johnson, 28, as they arrived to investigate the shooting; Kuwaiti college engineering students Nabil Al-Hameli, 25, and Emad Al-Tawakuly, 18, and Ruth Green 67, and Lester Watson, 51.
