REVONDA, JAWANTIS and RICHARD PEAY, BILLY RAY HALL JR - 13, 9, 8, and 11 yo - (1991) North Port FL

Charges filed in 1991 shooting deaths of six

By DALE WHITE|

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: December 20, 2011

Twenty years after a killing spree that terrified residents of North Port and Port Charlotte, prosecutors say they are ready to make their cases against a man who made statements of guilt in the six slayings.

Jeremy Bruce Sly, 41 — already serving a life sentence in state prison for a murder in Collier County — is charged with multiple counts of homicide in connection with the slayings of a retired couple in Port Charlotte and a North Port family with children on the same night in 1991.

North Port Police have booked Sly into the Sarasota County jail on four counts of second-degree murder and a charge of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Charlotte County deputies previously booked Sly into jail there when prosecutors filed homicide charges as well.

Karen Fraivillig, chief homicide prosecutor for the Sarasota County State Attorney's Office, said the two cases are being consolidated and will be heard in Charlotte.

Sly is to appear Wednesday in Charlotte County Circuit Court.

Kevin Shirley, a Punta Gorda lawyer assigned to represent Sly, said a plea bargain might be possible.

"We're trying to see if we can have something worked out" before the hearing, Shirley said.

On Dec. 19, 1991, one or more gunmen thought to have been wearing ski masks cut telephone lines and broke into a Port Charlotte home on Frisco Terrace and later a North Port home about 3.5 miles away on South Chamberlain Boulevard.

During each break-in, people were shot dead.

Sometime after midnight, Paul Stasny, 71, and his 60-year-old wife, Rita — retirees from Danbury, Conn. — and their dog were killed and their home ransacked. Several German rifles that Stasny collected were stolen.

Paul Stasny was a retired carpenter. His wife had worked at a department store in Danbury and, after their move to Florida, volunteered at a group home for the developmentally impaired.

About 2:30 a.m., one or more killers burst into a North Port home.

Luis Villegas, 37, and his four stepchildren — Revonda Peay, 13, Billy Ray Hall Jr., 11, Jawantis Peay, 9, and Richard Peay, 8 — were shot multiple times.

Jawantis Peay, now 29, survived. He is expected to attend the hearing Wednesday.

Villegas' 30-year-old wife, Donna Peay, escaped and called police on a portable phone — reportedly while the shootings were happening.

Villegas, a Vietnam War veteran who had worked as a state prison guard in Florida and New Jersey, had moved his family from North Carolina after inheriting his late father's home in North Port. He worked as a cook at a North Port health care center for retirees and previously at area restaurants.

Donna Peay was a certified nursing assistant at a Punta Gorda nursing home.

After the killings, gun sales soared and authorities posted billboards and posters offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.

In 1992, a 40-member task force of local, state and federal investigators received a tip that Sly might have been involved in the killings. But investigators lacked evidence.

Sly reportedly implicated himself in the killings in December 2002. Fraivillig, who is prosecuting the North Port case, said more evidence was needed before charges could be filed.

"People do give false confessions from time to time," Fraivillig said. "There was still a great deal of investigation that needed to be done. We had to corroborate what he said."

Investigators said they wanted to verify that details about the crime scenes provided by Sly could only have been known by the killer.

North Port Police Department Capt. Robert Estrada, who was among the officers who arrived at Villegas'
home, said he is glad that prosecutors have built their cases against Sly.

"It was a tragic scene," Estrada said.

Sly is the only suspect in the cases. Estrada is among those who doubt he acted alone. "He claimed to have acted alone," Estrada said. "We, as investigators, truly believe that there were more than one."

Sly reportedly has posted Internet messages saying he has found salvation in Jesus Christ.

"My life has run the gamut of human futility," he once wrote. "This served to bring me face to face with the wretched soul I have become."

Sly has been serving a life sentence on murder and armed burglary charges in connection with the Nov. 13, 1991, death of an elderly North Carolina woman in Naples.

http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-news/2011/dec/20/menewso7-charges-filed-in-1991-shooting-deaths-of--ar-336679/

UPDATE: Guilty plea and six life terms for 1991 murders


Published: Wednesday, December 21, 2011 at 2:59 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, December 21, 2011 at 5:29 p.m.

In a plea deal that will spare his life, Jeremy Sly pleaded guilty to the murders of Peay's family members, and to the murders of a retired Port Charlotte couple on the same night.

Sly, 41, was already serving a life sentence in prison for an unrelated murder when he confessed to the shootings in 2002.

Detectives in North Port, Port Charlotte and from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement spent five years investigating that confession before charging Sly with murder.

"This is, we hope, some small measure of justice, that at least one of the people involved is being held responsible," prosecutor Dan Feinberg said after Circuit Judge Christine Greider sentenced Sly to six more concurrent life sentences.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20111221/ARTICLE/111229896?p=1&tc=pg

It doesn't seem fair that a man can slaughter that many children, that many people and be allowed to live.  It must have been an economic decision.