Gerald Eugene Stano

[Starless]

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_k...ano/index.html

The following is a rough draft at this point, until more information is discovered.

TIMELINE:

September 12, 1951 / Gerald Eugene Stano is born in Schenectady, New York. He was the fifth child to his mother, originally named Paul, he was put up for adoption.

1953 / Adopted by Eugene and Norma Stano.

Late 1960s / Gerald is arrested for sounding a false alarm and shortly thereafter again for throwing large rocks at cars from atop a highway overpass. He was enrolled in Hargrove Military Academy in Virginia. Later removed from the military school and sent to live with his grandmother in Ormond Beach, Fla.

1967 / Stano family move to Norristown, PA. Gerald attends Shady Grove Junior High School. They live on Arch Street, in Whitpain Township.

1969 / Gerald attends high school at Wissahickon High School in Montgomery County.

1971 / Gerald graduates high school after failing a couple of grades.

1972 / Gerald moves into a motel and enrolls himself in the Maxwell Institute of Computer Science in Norristown, PA. He graduates four months later and gets a job working at Bryn Mawr Hospital. The job only lasts a few weeks until he was fired in June 1972 for stealing from other employees. He then got a job at Graduate Hospital, worked at Borroughs Corp. Plant in Tredyffrin, Chester County, and was fired in August 1973. At some point he lived briefly in New Jersey.

1975 / Gerald's parents insist he move to Ormond Beach with them.

June 21, 1975 / Gerald marries Michalina Gion Friddo, a 22 year old hairdresser. He is working at his father- in laws service station on U.S. 1.


1975 / Jailed on a forgery charge.

1976 / was divorced

July 1976 / Gerald moved into one of his parent's rental properties in Ormond Beach, FLA.

March 25, 1980 / A local prostitute reports she has been gashed in the leg by a customer and the wound had taken 24 stitches to close it. She points out a red 77 Gremlin in a neighborhood that she believes belongs to the perpetrator.

April, 1980 / Stano is questioned by police. He confesses to the assault on the prostitute. He also confesses to murdering Mary Carol Maher.

September 2, 1981 / Stano pled guilty to the murders of Mary Carol Maher, Toni Van Haddocks, and Nancy Heard. He is taken to county jail and later transported to Florida State Prison after being given three life sentences.

September 1983 / Gerald is sentenced to death for other confessed murders.

? Stano was executed, I'm not sure of the exact date yet.
_________________

[Starless]

Victims thus far :

Cathy Lee Scharf / 17 of Port Orange Florida, body was found Jan. 19 1974 in a ditch near Titusville.

Susan Bickrest / 24 of Daytona Beach, body was found floating in Spruce Spring Creek in December 1975

Mary Muldoon / 23 from Ormond Beach Florida, body discovered in a ditch November 1977.

Janine Ligotino / 19, body discovered near Gainesville 1973

Ann Arceneaux / 17, body discovered near Gainesville 1973

Barbara Ann Bauer / body found in 1974 near Starke Florida

Unidentified victim female / Found in Altamonte Springs Florida in 1974

Bonnie Hughes / 34

Dianna Valleck / 18

Emily Branch / 21

Christina Goodson / 17

Phoebe Winston / 23

Joan Foster / 18

Susan Basile / 12

Sandra Dubose / 35, body found in 1978 on a deserted road near Daytona Beach

Dorothy Williams / 17, body discovered in a ditch near Atlantic Avenue in 1979

Linda Hamilton / 16 , found dead July 22, 1975. Had last been seen walking down Atlantic Avenue.

Nancy Heard / 24, found dead January 1976 near Bulow Creek rd. North of Ormond Beach, body posed, covered with branches. Last seen hitchhiking on Atlantic Avenue.

Ramona Neal /18, Body found in Tomoka State Park, May 1976, covered with branches

Mary Carol Maher / 20, College student, body found Sunday February 17, 1980. Covered with branches, stabbed repeatedly, body posed.

Toni Van Haddocks/ 26, Prostitute, missing February 15, 1980. Body discovered April 15, 1980 in Daytona Beach by animals, cause of death was repeated stab wounds to the head.



This list is only half of Stano victims

_________________

[Starless]

http://www.radford.edu/~maamodt/Psyc...20-%202005.pdf

[Starless]

.....According to Crow, Stano speaks proudly of all the slayings except one - that of Susan Basile, 12, whom Stano said he met at a roller rink and later killed, though her body has not been found since her disappearance in 1975. Of the 25 Florida cases in which Stano has signed a confession, the girl is the only victim whose body has not been found. The wooded area where Stano said he left her body has since been bulldozed and is now a motocross track.

"He never talks about her. Whenever I bring it up, he switches the subject and says 'I don't want to talk about junior.' " In some instances, Crow said, Stano has brought up new killings to avoid talking about the girl, the daughter of a Port Orange, Fla., postal worker.

But defense attorney Jacobson said that Stano does not feel remorse about the girl's death.

"It bothers him that people will think he killed a 12-year-old; it doesn't bother him that he killed her," Jacobson said. "There's a hell of a lot of difference."......

[Starless]

Paper: Daytona Beach News-Journal (FL)
Title: WAITING FOR STANO TO DIE
Date: March 22, 1998

Saturday dawned bright but cold, the sort of day that promises warmth but never delivers.


John Maher, 39, flew home from Chicago. His old friend, John Anderson, 41, waited at gate 54 of Orlando International Airport for Maher's flight.An hour late, Maher exited the jetway and his eyes met Anderson's immediately. Anderson's tanned lifeguard's face lit up with a smile. His goatee, sunglasses and blue windbreaker contrasted with Maher's polo shirt and clean shave.


``John,'' Anderson said.


They clasped hands, exchanged hellos. Anderson had learned Maher would need a lift from the airport and decided at the last minute to surprise him. They drove together to the Ponce Inlet home of Maher's mother and stepfather, Gerry and Leonard Friedman.


Although baptized in good spirits, Maher's arrival carried a more serious undertone.


He came, bluntly put, to watch a man die.


He's seen men die before, as a Navy SEAL in the Gulf War. But that was business, a matter of his former profession.


``This is personal,'' he said, striding through the airport toward baggage claim.


If things go as planned, Maher and 23 others will gather early Monday morning inside the viewing area of the death chamber at Florida State Prison in Starke.


Unless he wins a stay of execution, Gerald Stano will walk into the chamber at 7 a.m., a window separating him from the witnesses, and corrections officers will seat him in the electric chair.


Stano, in the first of 41 confessions, admitted 18 years ago to murdering John Maher's sister, Mary Carol Maher. By his claims, Stano could be the most prolific serial killer in American history, worse than Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy.


For John Maher, watching the execution is no longer about vengeance. Time took care of that, he said. It's about an end to frustration with a system that countenances cruel delay.


``I'm doing it in support of my family,'' he said. ``We held inside of us that anger for many years. I didn't let go until I realized it only affects me.''


Stano's execution has been a long time coming for the families of his victims. Some, like John and Edith Scharf of Port Orange, didn't live long enough to see his sentence carried out. If Stano dies Monday, he dies specifically for murdering their daughter, Cathy Lee Scharf, in 1973.


``It's a very frustrating thing,'' said Michael Basile, 47, of Ponce Inlet. ``When Stano was up the last time (April 29, 1997), everyone assured me, `This is the time.' A year later, he's still breathing. It's debilitating. I decided after a lot of soul searching not to apply (for a seat as a witness). It's just too trying.''


Basile's 12-year-old sister, Susan, was Stano's youngest victim and by accounts at the time the most difficult for him to admit. Over a period of weeks in September and October 1982, a Daytona Beach police sergeant, detective Paul Crow, coaxed from Stano the story of Basile's disappearance. Whatever bond Stano formed with Crow -- friend, confessor or confidant -- it yielded a bumper crop of murder confessions.


Stano, formerly of Holly Hill, may have recognized Susan from the Starlite Skate Center on South Nova Road where he skated, sometimes fresh from a killing. He told Crow he picked her up as she exited a school bus on June 10, 1975, in Port Orange. He told Crow he enticed her with a ride to the rink.


Instead, he strangled her and left her body in a patch of woods, covered with palm fronds, his signature method of disposing of his victims. Her body was never found and the site has since been built over.


``We didn't know for seven years what had happened,'' Michael said. ``She disappeared, fell off the face of the earth. We had no inkling.''


His father, Sal, a retired letter carrier now 74, and his mother, Marjorie, 72, were devastated, Michael said.


Susan was the baby of the family. Michael and his sister Sharon were pretty much grown when Susan was born. Their mother and father doted on her, Michael said. He remembered her as a beautiful girl and a great student who enjoyed trips to Disney World.


Port Orange police at first believed she had run away, but Michael knew better.


``That was not even a remote possibility. They were almost the Cleaver family. She was 12 years old, her main thing in life was going to the skating rink and that factored into her death,'' he said recently.


Despite a community search and public pleas for information, Susan's body was never found.


Susan's disappearance left her stoic father, the provider and protector of his family, feeling helpless, Michael said. ``He couldn't help his daughter or take her body home to bury it,'' he said. ``The only time I've ever seen him cry is the day we realized she wasn't coming home. He's a real strong, silent type who tried his best to shield my mother from all this.''


His mother collapsed emotionally and even after 23 years finds talking about her lost daughter very trying, Michael said. It takes nothing to bring her to tears even today. At the time Susan disappeared, she was absolutely bereft, he said.


``She'd look out of the window all day waiting for her to come home,'' he recalled. ``It was just the most horrific feeling. My mother deteriorated before my eyes.''


Michael walked the Boardwalk each night for six months looking for his sister, hoping against hope that she'd turn up. Eventually, worn down by grief and his parents' deteriorating state, he moved to North Carolina where he met his future wife, Jo Ellen.


In October 1982, his sister Sharon phoned him with news Stano had confessed.


His family rarely talked about Susan's disappearance and only last year, when Stano's execution seemed imminent, did Michael seek details. He and Jo Ellen had returned to Volusia County in 1988. He plays bass in a rhythm-and-blues band. She is active in the county Turtle Patrol.


``My wife knew I was in avoidance. She tried to get me to open up. It was part of our relationship that she wanted to know what happened,'' he said.


Jo Ellen went to Crow and learned the details of Susan's death. Michael refused to hear them, even from his wife. Still, he expressed only gratitude for Crow, who went on to become police chief in Daytona Beach.


``I have only the greatest respect and admiration for him. If he hadn't been able to get Stano to open up, we would have never known. We're always in his debt,'' he said.


But hardship and bad news hadn't finished with Michael and Jo Ellen Basile. On Jan. 26, her father, 70-year-old Joel Rivenbark of Wallace, N.C., was murdered by an 18-year-old man from his neighborhood who had asked to use Rivenbark's telephone, they said.


As a younger man, Basile believed in an eye for an eye but gave little thought to capital punishment. Since then, he's taken on a harder edge. Forget deterrent effect, this is about vengeance, about a promise made by the state to its citizens, he explained.


``I'm adamant and clear-eyed about what should be done and what has to be done,'' he said. ``As brutal as this society is and as unsophisticated as a lot of life is, I just feel it's a necessary part of this society to punish those people who do these horrendous things. There has to be retribution for people who are so anti-social,'' he said.


Not long ago, before his father-in-law's death, Michael and Jo Ellen went house hunting, he said. He scheduled an appointment to see a home for sale that he knew belonged to the woman who as a little girl had been his sister Susan's best friend, the last to see her alive.


``Here's a grown woman with children and you think of what my sister's life would have been. She was beautiful, smart. No telling what she could have done. Even if nothing out of the ordinary, she would have had a productive life. That image stayed with me a long time,'' he said. ``Your life is filled with this kind of stuff. You'll never get away from it.''


As the Basiles concealed their grief, Friedman and her family confronted theirs openly.


Mary Carol Maher was a 20-year-old student at Daytona Beach Community College, part-time waitress and holder of nine swimming records at Mainland High School. Her body turned up, again concealed beneath palm fronds, in a wooded lot off the Bellevue Extension shortly after she disappeared in January 1980.


``Mary Carol was so well known, she was an astute student with a strong personality. If he could have gotten Mary Carol, he could have gotten anyone,'' said her mother, Gerry Friedman, 59.


As a single mother, Friedman raised four children -- two boys and two girls, including Mary Carol. They lived the adage, all for one and one for all, her mother said.


Friedman said she instilled in her children a desire to succeed. A scholarship at Clemson University awaited Mary Carol, the same school her older brother John attended. Mary Carol planned on becoming an anesthesiologist, her mother said.


``She was very determined, a hard worker, the kind you wanted as anchor person on a relay, to come through strong at the finish,'' said her former Mainland swimming coach, Tim Huth. ``You knew she would have enough to finish off the opponent and win the race.''


Her death changed forever the composition of her family, her mother said.


``I think they still have a certain amount of rage and loss,'' she said. ``Each one of my children has a different personality. They all seemed to fit. Once you lose a piece of the puzzle, it's hard to make it work. That void is something they haven't adjusted to.''

Gerald Eugene Stano was

executed by the State of

Florida

March 23 th 1998

I am glad to know that this Stano is in name only and not a disgrace to the Stano name.

I feel for is adoptive parents Eugene and Norma Stano and all the living relatives of his victims.

All Life is Precious and Gerald (Paul) will not hurt anyone else.

May God forgive him and keep all those he hurt in his grasp.

bob/stano40

PS

Does anyone know his true last name?

[Starless]

Daytona Beach News-Journal (FL)
March 22, 1998

Topics:
Index Terms:
MURDER, EXECUTION
GERALD STANO AND THE COURTS: A CHRONOLOGY




Article Text:
Here is an abbreviated chronology of Gerald Stano's trip through Florida's legal system.
* April 1, 1980 -- Daytona Beach police Officer James W. Gadberry Jr. arrests Stano, 28, of Ormond Beach for attacking a prostitute with a can opener and muriatic acid. Interviewed by Gadberry and police Sgt. Paul B. Crow, Stano admits to murdering Mary Carol Maher, 20, of Ormond Beach on Jan. 27. A Volusia County grand jury indicts him for the first time on a first-degree murder charge later that month.
* May 9, 1980 -- Stano confesses to Crow he murdered Toni Van Haddocks, 26, whose body a 12-year-old boy found April 6, 1980, in a lot on Primrose Lane, Holly Hill.
* August 1980 -- A Volusia County grand jury indicts Stano again on a first-degree murder charge for Van Haddocks' death.
* March 1981 -- Stano confesses four more murders to Crow and county sheriff's detective Sgt. Dave Hudson -- Nancy Heard, 24, of Daytona Beach, in January 1975; Linda Hamilton, 16, of Millbury, Mass., in July 1975; Ramona Neal, 18, of Forest Park, Ga., in May 1976; and an unidentified woman who body was found along the I-95 median in November 1980.
* August 1981 -- A grand jury indicts Stano for the murder of Heard, a beachside motel maid whose body was found on a power-line road off Walter Boardman Lane in Northeast Volusia.
* Sept. 2, 1981 -- Stano pleads guilty to murdering Maher, Van Haddocks and Heard. In accordance with a plea bargain, Circuit Judge S. James Foxman sentences him to three consecutive life terms. Stano also admits in court but is not charged with murdering Hamilton, Neal and the I-95 Jane Doe.
* Dec. 18, 1981 -- Brevard County sheriff's detectives charge Stano with murdering a seventh woman -- Cathy Scharf, 17, of Port Orange, who disappeared in December 1973 and whose remains hunters found in the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge 13 months later.
* Aug. 10-17, 1982 -- Stano admits murdering four more women -- Barbara Ann Bauer, 17, of New Smyrna Beach who disappeared Sept. 6, 1973; Susan L. Bickrest, 24, whose body fishermen found Dec. 20, 1975, floating in Spruce Creek; Sandra DeBose, 35, found shot to death Aug. 5, 1978, in West Cocoa; and Dorothy Williams, 17, stabbed to death behind a Tampa motel Dec. 11, 1979.
* March 7, 1983 -- Stano is sentenced to three more consecutive life terms after pleading guilty in Bradford County to murdering Bauer, Ann C. Arceneaux, 17, and Janine M. Ligotino, 19.
* June 13, 1983 -- Circuit Judge S. James Foxman sentences Stano to die for the murders of Muldoon and Bickrest -- Stano's first death sentences. After a three-day hearing, Foxman pronounced the murders ``completely senseless.''
* Sept. 26, 1983 -- Stano's first trial, on charges he murdered Cathy Lee Scharf, begins in Titusville.
* Sept. 30, 1983 -- Stano's trial ends in a jury deadlock.
* Nov. 16, 1983 -- The mother of Mary Carol Maher sues Stano in circuit court, DeLand, for $100 million. Geraldine Friedman hopes to prevent Stano from profiting by books or movies from his story.
* Dec. 2, 1983 -- A second jury in Titusville convicts Stano of Scharf's murder. A prison inmate named Clarence Zacke bolsters the state's case with testimony Stano once more admitted killing Scharf.
* Dec. 9, 1983 -- Brevard County Circuit Judge Gilbert Goshorn sentences Stano to death for Scharf's murder. It is Stano's third and final death sentence.
* Jan. 16, 1984 -- A Seminole County judge sentences Stano to a seventh life term for murdering an unidentified woman whose remains were found in a field near Altamonte Springs.
* April 13, 1984 -- A civil jury awards Geraldine Friedman more than $200 million after a trial in her wrongful death suit against Stano.
* November 1984 -- The Florida Supreme Court affirms Stano's two death sentences in Volusia County.
* May 13, 1985 -- The U.S. Supreme Court denies Stano's appeal petition.
* July 11, 1985 -- The Florida Supreme Court affirms the Brevard County conviction and death sentence.
* May 22, 1986 -- Gov. Bob Graham signs Stano's first death warrant for the Brevard conviction. Execution is scheduled for July 2, 1986.
* July 2, 1986 -- A Brevard circuit judge stays the execution several hours. The Florida Supreme Court grants an indefinite stay to allow Stano time to present new claims.
* Nov. 6, 1986 -- Graham signs Stano's first death warrant for the Volusia County convictions. His execution for the Volusia County murders is scheduled for 7 a.m. Dec. 2.
* Dec. 1, 1986 -- Judge Foxman stays Stano's execution indefinitely to hear his appeal on several claims, including his lawyer failed to represent him properly and police coerced his confessions.
* April 13, 1987 -- Foxman refuses to vacate Stano's convictions or sentence after hearing his claims in detail April 9.
* April 27, 1987 -- Gov. Bob Martinez signs Stano's second death warrant for the Volusia murders. He is scheduled for execution the week ending May 19.
* May 18, 1987 -- The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals grants Stano another stay of execution and allow him to pursue his claims in federal court. A U.S. District Court judge in Orlando had denied Stano's petition earlier that morning.
* June 4, 1987 -- The governor signs Stano's second death warrant for the Brevard murders. Execution is set for Aug. 26.
* Aug. 22, 1987 -- The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals grants a stay of execution.
* Nov. 17, 1989 -- A three-judge panel of the federal appellate court finds Stano's constitutional right to counsel was violated during his sentencing for the Bickrest and Muldoon murders.
* March 16, 1990 -- The 11th Circuit decides to reconsider the November ruling.
* Jan. 2, 1991 -- The appellate court reverses the panel and finds Stano's right to counsel had not been violated after all.
* Jan. 22, 1992 -- Stano and eight other prisoners appeal to the 11th Circuit, claiming defense attorney Howard Pearl had not disclosed a conflict of interest while he represented them. Pearl had been designated a ``special deputy'' with the Marion County Sheriff's Office for the purpose of carrying a concealed weapon only.
* June 10, 1992 -- A U.S. District Court judge conducts a 15-day hearing and issues a 28-page order detailing factual findings and denying Stano's appeal on three issues -- whether the state withheld evidence, whether Zacke's testimony had been improper and whether his prior convictions had been improperly considered in sentencing him to die for Scharf's murder.
* Dec. 15-18, 1992 -- Circuit Judge B.J. Driver hears arguments on the Pearl claims.
* April 2, 1993 -- Driver rules, finding Pearl lacked any real conflict and denying Stano's appeal.
* Feb. 20, 1996 -- The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear Stano's appeal of the June 10, 1992, decision.
* March 1997 -- Gov. Lawton Chiles signs Stano's third death warrant for the Brevard conviction. Execution is set for April 29, 1997.
* April 23, 1997 -- The Florida Supreme Court stays Stano's execution until May 30 in order to hear argument over the use of the electric chair. The dispute arises when a foot-long flame erupts from the head of Pedro Medina during his execution.
* Oct. 20, 1997 -- The high court removes the stay order after declaring the electric chair acceptable punishment. The same day, the governor's office reschedules Stano's execution for March 23, 1998.
* March 6, 1998 -- Stano's attorney Mark Olive unsuccessfully petitions the state Supreme Court for a stay of execution, based on the fact that he only resumed defending Stano in February.
* March 19, 1998 -- Olive again petitions for a stay in order to introduce new claims in Brevard County circuit court. His petitions and appeal are denied the same day.
* March 20, 1998 -- Olive appeals the Brevard decision and asks once more for a stay of execution from the state Supreme Court. He is denied once more.
* March 21, 1998 -- Olive petitions the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Here is an abbreviated chronology of Gerald Stano's trip through Florida's legal system:
* April 1, 1980 -- Daytona Beach police Officer James W. Gadberry Jr. arrests Stano, 28, of Ormond Beach for attacking a prostitute with a can opener and muriatic acid. Interviewed by Gadberry and police Sgt. Paul B. Crow, Stano admits to murdering Mary Carol Maher, 20, of Ormond Beach, in January. A Volusia County grand jury indicts him for the first time on a first-degree murder charge later that month.
* May 9, 1980 -- Stano confesses to Crow he murdered Toni Van Haddocks, 26, whose body was found April 15, 1980, in a lot on Primrose Lane in Holly Hill.
* August 1980 -- A Volusia County grand jury indicts Stano again on a first-degree murder charge for Van Haddocks' death.
* March 1981 -- Stano confesses four more murders to Crow and county sheriff's detective Sgt. Dave Hudson -- Nancy Heard, 24, of Daytona Beach, in January 1975; Linda Hamilton, 16, of Millbury, Mass., in July 1975; Ramona Neal, 18, of Forest Park, Ga., in May 1976; and an unidentified woman whose body was found along the I-95 median in November 1980.
* August 1981 -- A grand jury indicts Stano for the murder of Heard, a beachside motel maid whose body was found on a power-line service road in Northeast Volusia.
* Sept. 2, 1981 -- Stano pleads guilty to murdering Maher, Van Haddocks and Heard. In accordance with a plea bargain, Circuit Judge S. James Foxman sentences him to three consecutive life terms. Stano also admits in court but is not charged with murdering Hamilton, Neal and the I-95 Jane Doe.
* Dec. 18, 1981 -- Brevard County sheriff's detectives charge Stano with murdering a seventh woman -- Cathy Lee Scharf, 17, of Port Orange, who disappeared in December 1973 and whose remains hunters found in the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge 13 months later.
* Aug. 10-17, 1982 -- Stano admits murdering four more women -- Barbara Ann Bauer, 17, of New Smyrna Beach who disappeared Sept. 6, 1973; Susan L. Bickrest, 24, whose body fishermen found Dec. 20, 1975, floating in Spruce Creek; Sandra DeBose, 35, found shot to death Aug. 5, 1978, in West Cocoa; and Dorothy Williams, 17, stabbed to death behind a Tampa motel Dec. 11, 1979.
* March 7, 1983 -- Stano is sentenced to three more consecutive life terms after pleading guilty in Bradford County to murdering Bauer, Ann C. Arceneaux, 17, and Janine M. Ligotino, 19.
* June 13, 1983 -- Circuit Judge S. James Foxman sentences Stano to die for the murders of Mary K. Muldoon, 23, a Daytona Beach Community College student who was shot and drowned in 1977 in New Smyrna Beach, and Bickrest -- Stano's first death sentences. After a three-day hearing, Foxman pronounced the murders ``completely senseless.''
* Sept. 26, 1983 -- Stano's first trial, on charges he murdered Cathy Lee Scharf, begins in Titusville.
* Sept. 30, 1983 -- Stano's trial ends in a jury deadlock.
* Nov. 16, 1983 -- The mother of Mary Carol Maher sues Stano in circuit court in DeLand for $100 million. Geraldine Friedman hopes to prevent Stano from profiting from the murders by books or movies.
* Dec. 2, 1983 -- A second jury in Titusville convicts Stano of Scharf's murder. A prison inmate named Clarence Zacke bolsters the state's case with testimony Stano once more admitted killing Scharf.
* Dec. 9, 1983 -- Brevard County Circuit Judge Gilbert Goshorn sentences Stano to death for Scharf's murder. It is Stano's third and final death sentence.
* Jan. 16, 1984 -- A Seminole County judge sentences Stano to a seventh life term for murdering an unidentified woman whose remains were found in a field near Altamonte Springs.
* April 13, 1984 -- A civil jury awards Geraldine Friedman more than $200 million after a trial in her wrongful death suit against Stano.
* November 1984 -- The Florida Supreme Court affirms Stano's two death sentences in Volusia County.
* May 13, 1985 -- The U.S. Supreme Court denies Stano's appeal petition.
* July 11, 1985 -- The Florida Supreme Court affirms the Brevard County conviction and death sentence.
* May 22, 1986 -- Gov. Bob Graham signs Stano's first death warrant for the Brevard conviction. Execution is scheduled for July 2, 1986.
* July 2, 1986 -- A Brevard circuit judge stays the execution several hours. The Florida Supreme Court grants an indefinite stay to allow Stano time to present new claims.
* Nov. 6, 1986 -- Graham signs Stano's first death warrant for the Volusia County convictions. His execution for the Volusia County murders is scheduled for 7 a.m. Dec. 2.
* Dec. 1, 1986 -- Judge Foxman stays Stano's execution indefinitely to hear his appeal on several claims, including that his lawyer failed to represent him properly and police coerced his confessions.
* April 13, 1987 -- Foxman refuses to vacate Stano's convictions or sentence after hearing his claims in detail.
* April 27, 1987 -- Gov. Bob Martinez signs Stano's second death warrant for the Volusia murders. He is scheduled for execution the week ending May 19.
* May 18, 1987 -- The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals grants Stano another stay of execution and allow him to pursue his claims in federal court. A U.S. District Court judge in Orlando had denied Stano's petition earlier that morning.
* June 4, 1987 -- The governor signs Stano's second death warrant for the Brevard murders. Execution is set for Aug. 26.
* Aug. 22, 1987 -- The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals grants a stay of execution.
* Nov. 17, 1989 -- A three-judge panel of the federal appellate court finds Stano's constitutional right to counsel was violated during his sentencing for the Bickrest and Muldoon murders.
* March 16, 1990 -- The 11th Circuit decides to reconsider the November ruling.
* Jan. 2, 1991 -- The appellate court reverses the panel and finds Stano's right to counsel had not been violated after all.
* Jan. 22, 1992 -- Stano and eight other prisoners appeal to the 11th Circuit, claiming defense attorney Howard Pearl had not disclosed a conflict of interest while he represented them. Pearl had been designated a ``special deputy'' with the Marion County Sheriff's Office for the purpose of carrying a concealed weapon only.
* June 10, 1992 -- A U.S. District Court judge conducts a 15-day hearing and issues a 28-page order detailing factual findings and denying Stano's appeal on three issues -- whether the state withheld evidence, whether Zacke's testimony had been improper and whether his prior convictions had been improperly considered in sentencing him to die for Scharf's murder.
* Dec. 15-18, 1992 -- Circuit Judge B.J. Driver hears arguments on the Pearl claims.
* April 2, 1993 -- Driver finds Pearl lacked any real conflict and denies Stano's appeal.
* Feb. 20, 1996 -- The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear Stano's appeal of the U.S. District Court's June 10, 1992, decision.
* March 1997 -- Gov. Lawton Chiles signs Stano's third death warrant for the Brevard conviction. Execution is set for April 29, 1997.
* April 23, 1997 -- The Florida Supreme Court stays Stano's execution until May 30 in order to hear arguments over the use of the electric chair. The dispute arises when a foot-long flame erupts from the head of Pedro Medina during his execution.
* Oct. 20, 1997 -- The high court removes the stay order after declaring the electric chair acceptable punishment. The same day, the governor's office reschedules Stano's execution for March 23, 1998.
* March 6, 1998 -- Stano's attorney Mark Olive unsuccessfully petitions the state Supreme Court for a stay of execution, based on the fact that he only resumed defending Stano in February.
* March 19, 1998 -- Olive again petitions for a stay in order to introduce new claims in Brevard County circuit court. His petitions and appeal are denied the same day.
* March 20, 1998 -- Olive appeals the Brevard decision and asks once more for a stay of execution from the state Supreme Court. He is turned down again

[Starless]

Daytona Beach News-Journal (FL)
March 22, 1998
Topics:
Index Terms:
VICTIM, MURDER, EXECUTION

STANO'S VICTIMS


Article Text:
Gerald Stano admitted to leaving a trail of at least 41 victims. Ten of the murders involved victims either murdered in Volusia County or picked up there. Briefly, here is a look at those 10 cases:
* Barbara Bauer, 17, New Smyrna Beach, choked to death near Starke on Sept. 6, 1973. She met Stano at Holly Hill Plaza after experiencing car trouble while on her way home from buying material for her cheerleading uniforms. Stano told investigators he approached after seeing her dilemma and noticing she drove the same type of car he did -- a Plymouth Duster.
* Cathy Lee Scharf, 17, Port Orange, who was stabbed to death in Brevard County on Dec. 14, 1973 after Stano picked her up hitchhiking. Palm fronds covering her skeletal remains led investigators to link Stano with other murders because the victims had been covered the same way.
* Nancy Heard, 24, a beachside motel maid whose body was found Jan. 3, 1975, along a power-line service road near Cobb's Corner north of Ormond Beach. She had been strangled.
* Susan Basile, 12, Port Orange, who frequented the same skating rink as Stano. He relied on that to entice her into his car for a ride to the rink after she got off a school bus on June 10, 1975. Stano told police he strangled her. His youngest known victim, her body has never been found.
* Susan Bickrest, 24, who was strangled, then drowned in Spruce Creek in December 1975. The floating body of the Daytona Beach waitress was found by two fishermen.
* Ramona Neal, 18, Forest Park, Ga., who was in Daytona Beach with friends celebrating their graduation from high school. After quarreling with her boyfriend, she encountered Stano on May 29, 1975. Her body was discovered in Tomoka State Park. Years later, Stano remembered she wore a polka dot bathing suit.
* Mary Kathleen Muldoon, 23, a Daytona Beach Community College woodworking student. She was shot and drowned on Nov. 12, 1977, near Turnbull Road in New Smyrna Beach.
* ``Jane Doe,'' an unidentified woman 18-23 years old whose skeletal remains were found in a wooded I-95 median area in Port Orange. Stano told investigators she was a prostitute he met on Main Street in 1978 or 1979. He said he choked her to death. Years later, he recalled the slogan on her T-shirt, ``Do it in the dirt,'' an advertising slogan for a motorcycle manufacturer.
* Mary Carol Maher, 20, a former Mainland High School swimming team star who was attending DBCC when she disappeared. She was found stabbed to death on Feb. 17, 1980. Stano admitted taking a knife from beneath his car seat and plunging it into her chest as they drove on Clyde Morris Boulevard near Mason Avenue.
* Toni Van Haddocks, 26, of Volusia County, was found April 15, 1980, near Primrose Lane in Holly Hill, stabbed 51 times. Stano told police he dumped her body there -- near his brother's home -- because he was mad at him.

[Starless]

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