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19-Jan-2019
Pablo Ibar convicted in Casey's Nickelodeon triple murder after TrueAllele unmixes DNA evidence
Fort Lauderdale, FL
On June 6, 1994, two masked gunmen burst into Casimir "Butch Casey" Sucharski's home in Miramar, Florida. They shot and killed Sucharski, owner of Casey's Nickelodeon, and his two nightclub dancers Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers.
A hidden video camera captured the events, showing the killers pumping bullets into three bound bodies on the floor. A gunman then took off the T-shirt covering his face, to reveal grainy footage of Pablo Ibar.
This was the fifth Miramar murders trial. In 1997, the jury hung. In 2000, separate trials found Ibar and his co-defendant guilty, giving death sentences. Ibar's co-defendant was retried in 2012, and acquitted. Ibar was granted a new trial in 2016.
Spanish production company Filmax taped the trial. There was strong sentiment for Ibar in Spain, fueled by his sports celebrity father and the death penalty. Spain granted Florida-born Ibar Spanish citizenship after his 2000 conviction.
Back in 2010, Ibar had requested independent DNA testing of the shirt. Comparison with another man didn't match.
Preparing for trial, Broward County prosecutors had the crime lab compare the shirt with Ibar's DNA; they found partial match results. But the State wanted more complete DNA identification information.
The prosecutors sent the lab data to Cybergenetics. TrueAllele® found Ibar and Anderson's DNA mixed together on the shirt. After unmixing the data, the computer said a match between the shirt and Ibar was 353 trillion times more probable than coincidence.
On December 20, 2018, Cybergenetics Chief Scientist Dr. Mark Perlin testified about the TrueAllele match results. On January 19, 2019, after deliberating for twenty-two hours over four days, the jury found Pablo Ibar guilty of the three 1994 murders.
Links
- Casey's Nickelodeon murders video clip - YouTube - Security Camera Footage
- Both sides point to DNA as retrial begins in Casey's Nickelodeon murder case - South Florida Sun Sentinel - Newspaper
- Guilty again: Convicted killer could face death in 1994 Casey's Nickelodeon murders - South Florida Sun Sentinel - Newspaper
- DNA mixture sorts out triple-homicide conviction in Florida - Forensic Magazine - Featured Story