SAMUEL JAMES "JIMMY" RYCE - 9 yo - (9/1995) / Convicted: Juan Carlos Chavez - Miami, FL

Chavez Confession Numbs Courtroom


Details Contend Handyman Asked 9-year-old Boy If He `Wanted To Die'


September 10, 1998|By JAY WEAVER Miami Bureau

ORLANDO — On a September afternoon three years ago, Juan Carlos Chavez was picking up building supplies while Jimmy Ryce was returning from school to his south Miami-Dade County home.

After his errand at Home Depot, the handyman drove his truck past a group of young boys clad in underwear who were swimming in a canal. He took a mental picture of them.

That image was in Chavez's mind later when he confronted Jimmy, 9, at gunpoint, Chavez said in his confession, which was read on Wednesday in his kidnap-murder trial.

``I asked him whether he wanted to die,'' Chavez said.

``No,'' Jimmy told Chavez, staring him in the face.

Jurors, as well as Jimmy's parents, appeared numbed by the grisly details of Chavez's confession, which was read by Miami-Dade Police Detective Luis Estopinan. Chavez, 31, is charged with abducting the boy on Sept. 11, 1995, and then taking him to a horse farm where he allegedly sodomized and shot him. According to his confession, Chavez then dismembered Jimmy's body and buried the parts in concrete planters.

The confession, which Chavez gave to police about midnight on Dec. 8, 1995, is the foundation of the case against him. It reinforces key physical evidence, including the .38-caliber murder weapon and Jimmy's book bag, which were found in his trailer.
As the horrific final days of their son were described to jurors, Don and Claudine Ryce clung to each other and tried to contain their emotions. During a recess, a female juror gave a sympathetic smile to the Ryces before they left the courtroom escorted by three Miami-Dade assistant state attorneys.

For Claudine Ryce, the reading of Chavez's confession coincided with her 56th birthday. And it was entered into evidence on the eve of the third anniversary of Jimmy's disappearance.

``My birthdays aren't so nice because they come so close to the day he was taken,'' she told reporters. ``My birthday now reminds me of losing my Jimmy.''

Jimmy, a good student who loved playing Little League, became a household name in South Florida after his abduction. For about three months, FBI agents and police searched for him.

The case broke on Dec. 6, 1995. Susan Scheinhaus, Chavez's employer, suspected that he had stolen her .38-caliber gun, so she went into his trailer. That's where she found the gun and Jimmy's canvas backpack. She called police.

More than two days later, Chavez admitted to kidnapping and killing the boy.

According to that confession, Chavez took Jimmy in his truck to the horse farm, about seven miles from the Scheinhaus ranch. There, he forced Jimmy inside his trailer.

``I didn't know how to face him. I didn't know what to tell him,'' Chavez said in his confession.

Chavez soon asked Jimmy to take off his clothing. The boy was sobbing.

``He asked me if I was going to kill him,'' Chavez said.

He sodomized the boy, then told him to get dressed.

According to the confession, Chavez started to drive the boy back to where he had abducted him. But, upon seeing police in the area, he returned to the trailer.

``[Jimmy) was nervous because he thought I was going to kill him,'' Chavez said.

Finally, the boy dashed for the front door. Chavez said he pulled out the pistol and shot him.

``It was the only way to prevent him from going out,'' he said.

Chavez told detectives he slapped the boy's face to stir him.

``I heard the sound of something that was losing air,'' he said.

Chavez said he wrapped the boy in sheets, stuck his body in a metal tank and put it in the back of his gray pickup truck. He said he took the metal container to the Scheinhaus ranch, where he hid it in his red van.

On the night of Sept. 11, 1995, Chavez said, he returned to the truck to retrieve Jimmy's backpack. He took it to the trailer he used and left it there.

In a confused state, Chavez waited a few days before deciding to remove the body from his van. He used a stick with a sharp metal edge to chop up the boy's body and placed it in three concrete planters. He threw the tank in a canal.

As he made his confessional statement, Chavez was asked by detectives why he didn't toss out Jimmy's book bag.

``It would have hurt me to throw it away,'' Chavez said. ``It would have bothered me to throw it away.''

The interrogation lasted 54 hours. Before confessing, Chavez denied knowing anything about Jimmy's disappearance.

But, gradually, he began talking about the murder. Still, he didn't fill in all the horrific details that emerged during his ultimate confession.

In fact, Chavez had given a different confession halfway through his interrogation. On Wednesday morning, jurors listened impassively to parts of that initial confession, in which he said he accidentally hit and killed Jimmy with his truck and then hid the body. In the afternoon, they became transfixed when they heard transcripts of Chavez's later confession.

Prosecutors are expected to finish calling their witnesses by Friday.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1998-09-10/news/9809090763_1_chavez-s-mind-jimmy-ryce-juan-carlos-chavez

Supreme Court of Florida - Florida Supreme Court

Nov 21, 2002 - On the afternoon of September 11, 1995, nine-year-old Samuel James ... At that time, the defendant, Juan Carlos Chavez, was living in a trailer ...snip

http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/decisions/pre2004/ops/sc94586.pdf

Jury Calls For Killer To Die



Decision Is Unanimous In Ryce Murder


October 28, 1998|By LUISA YANEZ Miami Bureau

ORLANDO — The fate of one of South Florida's most reviled killers now seems virtually certain.

Twelve jurors in Orlando on Tuesday took less than an hour to recommend death for Juan Carlos Chavez, the killer of 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce.

Last month, some jurors cried when they convicted Chavez, 31, of kidnapping, sodomizing and murdering the boy three years ago _ a crime that became one of Miami-Dade County's most notorious child killings and led to legislation from Tallahassee to Washington, D.C.

On Tuesday, jurors' tears were for Jimmy's parents, Claudine and Don Ryce. Minutes after condemning Chavez, juror Laura Poserina pushed her way outside the Orange County Courthouse and embraced Claudine Ryce.

``I'm so sorry,'' Poserina said.

``I'm so proud of you,'' Claudine Ryce told her. ``All you jurors did the right thing. Thank you.''

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Marc Schumacher must rule on the jury's recommendation, perhaps as early as next month. Rarely do judges overturn a jury's wish in a life-and-death case.

``You never know what a jury is going to recommend, but you don't expect 12 jurors to say the same thing,'' said Miami-Dade Homicide Detective Pat Diaz, who has lived with the case since Sept. 11, 1995, when Jimmy disappeared as he walked to his south Miami-Dade home from a school bus stop.

Chavez's fate is now in Schumacher's hands. A sentencing date will be set on Nov. 9 and will likely come before year's end.

On Tuesday, Chavez took the news that he is likely headed for Death Row with his usual demeanor, a blank look and seemingly no emotion.

The ranch hand who came to the United States from Cuba in 1992 flinched slightly when the clerk read the death penalty recommendation. Then he blew a kiss to his mother, Mireya Garcia, as she walked out of the Orange County court. Garcia came from Cuba to beg jurors for his life.

Sitting across the courtroom was Jimmy's mother. Claudine Ryce sobbed into her hands as the jurors _ seven men and five women _ filed out.

The emotional outpouring continued outside the courthouse.

Other jurors also were thanked personally by the Ryces.

``There will never be closure for us, but this is a very important resolution,'' Don Ryce told the jurors. ``This will help. Don't ever think it won't.''

Jurors said it had been a gruesome and difficult two-month trial. They were shown photographs of Jimmy's smiling face, then of his dismembered remains. Some jurors cried or looked away when they were shown the giant planters in which Chavez encased the boy's remains in concrete.

When it came to deciding Chavez's guilt, they were in harmony and well aware of the massive responsibility on their shoulders, the jurors said. There was no dissension during deliberation.

``It was an emotional decision, but we were all in agreement today,'' said juror Greg Clause, who cried openly last month when Chavez was convicted.

A relieved Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Michael Band said, ``Justice had been served.''

Chavez's lead attorney, Assistant Public Defender Art Koch, who used a controversial ``other killer defense,'' declined to comment until after final sentencing. Appeals are likely.

The jury's recommendation came only two hours after attorneys gave their final summations during the two-day sentencing hearing.

Band detailed Jimmy's final three hours. How Chavez stopped him on the side of the road and pointed a gun at him, telling the boy to get in the truck if he didn't want to die.

Chavez sodomized the boy in a vacant trailer on the ranch where he fed horses. Hearing a police helicopter overhead, Jimmy tried to make a run for it. That's when Chavez shot him dead.

Band called Chavez a coward.

Then came the defense's turn. And for the first time, Assistant Public Defender Manny Alvarez admitted to jurors that Chavez, not another man, was probably Jimmy's killer.

Still, Alvarez asked for mercy. He asked the jury to consider that Chavez had never before committed a crime in the United States.

``What happened on Sept. 11, 1995, is inexplicable because Juan Carlos never gave anyone any indication that he could do this,'' Alvarez said. ``He was a good person before that day . . . and today we are talking about the sinner, not the sin.''

Ultimately, the jurors were not swayed by any mitigating circumstances, the tearful testimony of the convicted killer's mother, or the defense's claim throughout the trial that Edward Scheinhaus, the son of Chavez's onetime landlady, was the true killer.

Susan Scheinhaus solved the case when she found Jimmy's book bag in Chavez's trailer three months after the boy disappeared.
After the hearing, Schumacher ordered that Chavez be immediately transported back to the Miami-Dade County jail and the 8-by-10 solitary cell he shares with a color television set.

There, he will await sentencing.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1998-10-28/news/9810280021_1_jimmy-ryce-jurors-juan-carlos-chavez

Samuel James “Jimmy” Ryce murder 9/11/1995 *Juan Carlos Chavez convicted of capital murder, rape and kidnapping; Sentenced to death*


Posted on April 18, 2012 by mylifeofcrime


Jimmy Ryce


Find-A-Grave: SAmuel James “Jimmy” Rice
Jimmy Ryce Center
JIMMY RYCE INVOLUNTARY CIVIL COMMITMENT
FOR SEXUALLY VIOLENT PREDATORS’
Book Bag Tip Sets Off Jimmy Ryce Search
State To Seek Death For Man Accused Of Killing Jimmy Ryce
Slain Boy’s Mother Testifies
Ryce Case Goes To The Jury
Jury Calls For Killer To Die
Killer Of Jimmy Ryce Asks Judge For Mercy
Fate Of Jimmy Ryce Killer To Be Announced Today
For Ryces, Justice Served
Jimmy Ryce’s Murderer Seeks To Have His Confession Voided
Juan Carlos Chavez v State of Florida
Jimmy Ryce Killer Loses Supreme Court Appeal
Attorneys For Ryce’s Killer Have Court Date
Nine-year-old’s killer back in court
Mom’s Close-up Of Son’s Killer
Wikipedia: Jimmy Ryce
Murderpedia: Juan Carlos Chavez

Movies/Documentaries


FBI: Criminal Pursuit: Do You Want To Die

INMATE INFORMATION

DC Number: M18034
Name: CHAVEZ, JUAN C
Race: WHITE
Sex: MALE
Hair Color: BROWN
Eye Color: BROWN
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 170 lbs.
Birth Date: 03/16/1967
Initial Receipt Date: 12/09/1998
Current Facility: UNION C.I.
Current Custody: MAXIMUM
Current Release Date: DEATH SENTENCE
Aliases:
JUAN CHAVEZ JUAN C CHAVEZ
JUAN CARLOS CHAVEZ JUAN CARLOS CHAVEZ-GARCIA
Current Prison Sentence History:
Offense Date Offense Sentence Date County Case No. Prison Sentence Length
09/11/1995 1ST DG MUR/PREMED. OR ATT. 11/23/1998 ORANGE 9811700 DEATH SENTENCE
09/11/1995 SEX BAT BY ADULT/VCTM LT 12 11/23/1998 ORANGE 9811700 SENTENCED TO LIFE
09/11/1995 KIDNAP;COMM.OR FAC.FELONY 11/23/1998 ORANGE 9811700 SENTENCED TO LIFE

Note: The offense descriptions are truncated and do not necessarily reflect the crime of conviction. Please refer to the court documents or the Florida Statutes for further information or definition.

Incarceration History:
Date In-Custody Date Out-of-Custody
12/09/1998 Currently Incarcerated

http://mylifeofcrime.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/samuel-james-jimmy-ryce-murder-9111995-juan-carlos-chavez-convicted-of-capital-murder-rape-and-kidnapping-sentenced-to-death/

Scott Orders Execution For Murderer of Jimmy Ryce



Juan Carlos Chavez Scheduled to Die Feb. 12

By BRENDAN FARRINGTON
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: Thursday, January 2, 2014 at 7:28 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, January 2, 2014 at 7:28 p.m.

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott signed a death warrant Thursday for the man who kidnapped, raped and murdered 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce on his way home from school almost 20 years ago.

Cuban refugee Juan Carlos Chavez listens through ear phones as a court interpreter sits behind him during jury selection in the Jimmy Ryce murder trial in Orlando in 1998.
The Associated Press File Photo


Juan Carlos Chavez, 46, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Feb. 12 for the Sept. 11, 1995, murder in a rural area in Miami-Dade County.

It was a case that horrified the state and led to the passage of the Jimmy Ryce Act, which allows authorities to commit dangerous sexual predators to mental institutions once they have completed their prison terms.

The law would not have stopped Chavez, however, as he had no previous record for sex crimes.

Jimmy had just been let off his school bus when Chavez kidnapped him and brought him to a mobile home on the ranch where he was a handyman.

He raped the boy and held him at gunpoint for more than three hours, finally shooting him as he tried to escape. He chopped the body up, put the remains in large planters and then sealed them with concrete.

He was arrested almost three months later after the boy’s book bag was found in the mobile home. He then gave a detailed confession to the crime.

A judge moved the trial from Miami-Dade to Central Florida because of pretrial publicity. He was convicted in 1998 and sentenced to death.

“Justice will finally be done in the murder of my son, Jimmy,” the boy’s father, Don Ryce, said in a statement emailed to the news media. “I feel a combination of sadness and relief. I hope this sends a message to predators that this behavior will not go unpunished.”

After the murder, Ryce and his wife, Claudine, who died in 2009, worked to pass laws nationally that would help find abducted children and prevent similar crimes.

During the search for Jimmy, they put up posters in courthouses and public buildings that were taken down because they weren’t authorized.

In response, President Bill Clinton signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to post missing-children posters in post offices, federal courthouses and other federal buildings.

The couple, both lawyers, raised awareness about the need for law enforcement to search for missing children sooner, noting that most children who are abducted are killed within 48 hours.

They also set up a non-profit group that provides bloodhounds to police agencies, support for parents of abducted children and increases awareness about sexual predators.

The death warrant comes as lawmakers consider strengthening the 1998 law in the wake of reports by the South Florida Sun Sentinel that found that nearly 600 sexual predators had been released only to be convicted of new sex offenses — including more than 460 child molestations, 121 rapes and 14 murders.

Scott’s office received numerous pleas for the governor to execute Chavez as the 18th anniversary of Ryce’s death approached.

“As simply as I can put it, it is time to end this family’s suffering,” Colleen Salaam of Broward County emailed Scott in September.

“He has out lived the entirety of the (Ryce) family,” wrote Dade County resident Matthew Schantz of Chavez. “It is time to put an end to this. It is time for justice.”

The tone was much different from the international pleas Scott often gets for amnesty when an inmate execution is pending.

With subject lines that include “the man who murdered this child has been on death row for way too long,” a number of people questioned how “this animal is still alive” and that they “don’t want to clothes, feed, and house” Chavez.

“I am one of those citizens of Homestead that spent days looking for poor Jimmy Ryce only to have my heart broken,” wrote Patty Accursio in September. Chavez “does not deserve to live one more day. The pain and suffering he has caused this family is just not acceptable.”

Jim Turner of The News Service of Florida contributed to this report.

http://www.theledger.com/article/20140102/NEWS/140109872?p=3&tc=pg#gsc.tab=0

A Colorless World


September 11, 2000|By KATHLEEN KERNICKY Staff Writer


Claudine Ryce speaks matter-of-factly as she lists the names of the other parents. Jones. Rodriguez. Cox. Walsh. Members of what one calls the same awful club.

A club that has brought Claudine and Don Ryce together with hundreds of parents of murdered or abducted children. To hear their stories. To offer guidance. To help them find their child.

"People ask me, `How do you cope?' Well, I don't," Claudine says in a tone that suggests the answer is obvious. "I do feel some peace is when I'm helping other parents."

It was five years ago today that 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce was kidnapped, raped and murdered near his parents' home in a rural neighborhood known as the Redland in southern Miami-Dade County.

He was missing for three months, until Dec. 5, 1995, when a ranch hand who was later convicted of Jimmy's murder would lead police to the skeletal remains in an avocado grove, a few miles from Jimmy's home.

Five years later, the grief in Don and Claudine Ryce is fresh and difficult to watch.

Claudine, 57, once a trial attorney for the Internal Revenue Service, is executive director of the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction in Miami Beach, a resource for the families of abducted children.

She works 60 hours a week. And talks at breakneck speed. About the work that needs to be done. About the danger that children face. About parents who must educate themselves and teach their kids how to escape.

She talks about Jimmy with a tremor in her voice, a cadence of sorrow.

Don, 56, is an attorney who practices labor law. He recites with lawyerly precision the grim statistics surrounding sexual predators. How they kill. How they repeat the crime. How brazenly they will steal a child in public view, or, in Jimmy's case, from a school bus stop. How a child who is missing for a long time so rarely returns alive.

In the midst of this, he starts to cry. He chokes back the sobs, apologizes, and tries to make himself stop. He starts to talk, only to start crying again. And again.

"These anniversaries," he says, "are hard."

What is clear is that every day is hard, and that today is only harder than the rest.

For the Ryces, and the other members of this awful club, the murder of a child becomes a death sentence of its own.

Claudine describes how empty she feels. How impossible it is to celebrate Christmas now. How she and Don "weren't there" when Jimmy called for help, weren't there to protect their son, like parents are supposed to. And it is that thought that tortures them so.
"You hear about going on with your life. But how?" Don asks. "You're never the same. You build a wall around yourself so you can handle it most of the time, and every once in a while, you collapse. You know it's not going to change."

Posted on Wednesday, 01.15.14




Judge rejects appeal of Jimmy Ryce’s killer

 

Death row inmate Juan Carlos Chavez walks into the criminal courthouse Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2007, in Miami. Walter Michot / Miami Herald Staff


A Miami-Dade judge on Wednesday rejected the latest appeal by Juan Carlos Chavez, the South Miami-Dade farmhand slated to be executed Feb. 12 for the 1995 murder of Jimmy Ryce.

The judge’s decision paves the way for a series of appeals expected to be hashed out in higher courts during the weeks before Chavez’s scheduled execution.

Chavez was convicted of the 1995 murder that sparked nationwide efforts to improve searches for missing children and led to the passage of a law that allows the state to indefinitely detain sexual predators.

Gov. Rick Scott earlier this month signed the death warrant for Chavez, 46, whose conviction and death sentence has been upheld by the Florida Supreme Court.

Chavez confessed to kidnapping the 9-year-old boy at gunpoint in the Redland, driving him to a trailer on a remote horse farm, raping him and then shooting the boy in the back when he tried to escape. Jimmy’s dismembered remains were

found sealed in cement-filled pots behind Chavez's home.

The search for Jimmy, who vanished from a bus stop not far from his home, riveted South Florida for weeks as hundreds of volunteers searched for the boy.

Chavez was convicted in 1998 and jurors unanimously recommended the death penalty. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Marc Schumacher sentenced him to death.

After the execution date was set, Chavez’s lawyers asked Schumacher, who is still on the bench, to stay the execution because of an appeal pending in federal court. The judge declined.

Chavez’s lawyers also sought to stop the execution over concerns about the state’s recent use of the sedative midazolam hydrochloride. The drug, one of three used to in the lethal injection process, may constitute “cruel and unusual punishment,” defense lawyers contend.

But last month, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that Miami killer Thomas Knight failed to prove that the drug “presents a serious risk of needless suffering.” Knight, after nearly four decades on Death Row, was executed last week.

Judge Schumacher cited the Knight decision, saying Chavez offered no proof that he could disprove the high court’s findings. The Miami-Dade judge also denied Chavez’s final claim that the inmate was denied a proper clemency hearing by the governor.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/15/3872805/judge-rejects-appeal-of-jimmy.html#emlnl=Five_Minute_Herald

---

Posted on Wednesday, 02.12.14

Juan Carlos Chavez executed for murder of Jimmy Ryce


FILE--Juan Carlos Chavez looks at the people in the courtroom while entering for a hearing regarding Jimmy Ryce. C.M. GUERRERO / EL NEUVO HERALD STAFF

STARKE — Juan Carlos Chavez, the South Miami-Dade sex predator who kidnapped, raped and killed 9-year-old Jimmy Ryce in an infamous 1995 murder, was executed Wednesday night.


Officials at Florida State Prison pronounced him dead at 8:17 p.m. on a damp, chilly evening in North Florida.

"It’s closure. Justice has been served for an evil man," said Pat Diaz, the retired Miami-Dade police detective who led the investigation into Jimmy's murder.

The execution came after a tense delay of more than an hour as the U.S. Supreme Court considered, but ultimately denied, a last-minute request for a stay.

Strapped down in the death chamber, Chavez declined to say any last words, although he wrote out a last statement that will be made public later Wednesday night. The lethal injection process began at 8:03 p.m. and showed no signs of complications as Chavez fell into deep and fatal sleep.

Don Ryce, Jimmy’s father who has been a high-profile crusader against crime and sexual predators, remained stoic while witnessing the execution.

In all, 19 official witnesses were on hand, including Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Penny Brill, and former prosecutor Michael Band, both of whom took Chavez to trial. Former Miami-Dade homicide sergeant Felix Jimenez was also on hand, as was one juror who helped convict Chavez in the 1998 trial.

The murder of the Redland boy, who disappeared from his school bus stop near his home, shook South Florida’s sense of security and spurred legislation allowing the state to indefinitely detain sexual predators.

Earlier in the day, Chavez’s only visitor was a “spiritual adviser.” His demeanor during the day was calm, a Florida corrections spokeswoman told reporters. His last meal included a ribeye steak, French fries, a fruit cup and strawberry ice cream, washed down with mango juice.

The notoriety of the case drew an unusually large media contingent. About two dozen news reporters, photographers and TV satellite trucks gathered under drizzling gray skies in a sprawling field across from the Florida State Prison.

Chavez, who spent nearly 16 years on Death Row, was the 12th inmate put to death in Florida since the start of 2012.

The day started off with the Florida Supreme Court rejecting a last-minute bid to delay this evening’s scheduled execution. The state high court’s decision followed a federal judge’s ruling that also denied the 46-year-old Chavez’s request for an emergency stay.

Chavez’s lawyer, Robert Norgard, tried to persuade the Florida Supreme Court to reconsider Chavez’s argument that the sedative used as part of the cocktail of lethal drugs was ineffective as a pain-relieving anesthetic and therefore violated his constitutional protection against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

His lawyer filed an affidavit, by a University of Miami anesthesiologist David Lubarsky, to bolster his client’s latest claim on Tuesday. Norgard based that claim on the state high court’s decision to consider the same expert’s evidence in another Death Row inmate’s petition.

But the Florida Supreme Court concluded that Chavez should have presented this evidence when he had the opportunity before the justices rejected his previous bid for a stay on Jan. 31.

“This request for a stay on the eve of execution, supported by a declaration that was known to Chavez while state court proceedings were pending, constitutes a delaying tactic that is not supported by equitable considerations,” the state Supreme Court said in a two-page ruling.

For Chavez, a farmhand who confessed to the crime and was convicted at trial in 1998, the final word came early in the evening in the form of a terse denial from the nation’s highest court.

The disappearance of Jimmy — a bright kid with a passion for baseball and chess — on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 1995, shook South Florida’s sense of security and became a national story.

It echoed a notorious child-kidnapping 14 years earlier, when 6-year-old Adam Walsh was abducted from a Hollywood shopping center. Adam’s severed head was the only part of his body ever found.

Jimmy vanished after he exited a school bus a few blocks from his home in the Redland, a rural area with farms, ranches, and large residential properties. His parents, both lawyers, were out of town on business.

The Ryces, along with neighbors and volunteers, fellow St. Andrew’s parishioners, the FBI, Miami-Dade police, and other law-enforcement agencies launched a massive search.

The Ryces boosted a reward from $25,000 to $100,000 for any information on the whereabouts of their son. Posters and fliers with his picture were distributed throughout South Florida and beyond. The parents also went on the Oprah Winfrey talk show.

But nearly three months later, there was still no sign of Jimmy.

Then, on Dec. 6, the owner of a horse farm near the Ryce’s home grew suspicious that a handyman living on her property had stolen a gun and some jewelry. Susan Scheinhaus and her son, Eddie, entered the farmhand’s trailer and found her belongings. They also discovered a brown Jansport knapsack with a suede bottom that fit the description of the book bag that belonged to Jimmy. It also contained his school books and papers.

Scheinhaus notified the FBI and Miami-Dade police, and they obtained a warrant to search the trailer for the backpack.

Investigators also began interrogating the farmhand, Chavez, who had fled Cuba aboard a raft and worked as a mechanic in Hialeah before he was hired by the Scheinhaus family. Police questioned him for more than 50 hours, during which investigators say Chavez twice waived his Miranda rights and denied any involvement in Jimmy’s disappearance — until he finally broke down and confessed in a 61-page statement.

Chavez told Miami-Dade homicide investigators that he grabbed Jimmy at gunpoint as he exited the school bus, put him in his pickup truck and took him to his trailer, where he raped him, according to the confession. When Jimmy tried to escape from his camper, Chavez shot him in the back, decapitated him, and dismembered his body, hiding the parts in concrete in three plastic planters buried in an avocado grove on the Scheinhaus’ horse farm.

His defense lawyer, Art Koch, argued the confession was impermissible because it was coerced and involuntary, saying that detectives tricked him into waiving his right to remain silent.

But Chavez’s eventual confession — coupled with the discovery of the boy’s knapsack, the murder weapon, and the bullet that killed him — was permitted as evidence and clinched the case.

Miami-Dade’s lead homicide investigator in the Ryce case, Pat Diaz, said the boy’s murder was among the most “heinous” in his 33-year career.

“Making this case was life and death,” Diaz said. “There was no room for failure.”

Selecting a jury for the trial in Miami proved to be a stumbling block, so the circuit judge, Marc Schumacher, moved the proceeding to Orlando. The September 1998 trial was an emotional ordeal for the Ryce family and everyone else involved. The most jolting moments came when a female juror sobbed as a detective described Jimmy’s body parts in one of the planters, and Chavez denied his confession and blamed Scheinhaus’ son, Eddie, for the boy’s death.

After six-and-a-half hours of deliberations, the 12-person jury convicted Chavez of kidnapping, rape, and murder. The following month, jurors unanimously recommended the death penalty, which was imposed by Schumacher that November.


http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/12/3929900/florida-supreme-court-rejects.html

A fitting end to a POS pedophile, rapist, murderer.

It should have happened 20 years ago.