Dayonte Resiles (inset) is about to face a second trial for the homicide of Jill Halliburton Su (far proper).
NY Submit picture composite
Somebody brutally stabbed the blonde, 59-year-old member of the Halliburton oil dynasty about 25 instances and left her bloody corpse, arms and toes certain, within the bathtub of her posh Florida residence in 2014.
Her son, then 20, discovered her, and referred to as the cops in what seemed like a panic.
“My mother killed herself!” he cried when he reached Broward County’s 911 dispatcher. “She simply stabbed herself and threw herself within the bathtub!”
However even because the second homicide trial of the suspect, Dayonte Resiles, begins this week, discovering out whodunit has change into one thing out of a made-for-TV film.
“That is what we name ‘Bro-weird County,’ the place something can occur. However there are twists and turns on this case which might be fairly unusual even for this place,” stated H. Dohn Williams, a famend Florida legal protection lawyer who has represented among the state’s most infamous murderers and briefly served as Resiles’ lawyer.
First, the sufferer’s son was briefly thought-about an individual of curiosity, then Resiles staged a daring courtroom escape in July 2016 and went on the lam for six days earlier than being captured. Lastly, in December, the trial resulted in a mistrial amid rumors of racial bias. And in a twist that was arguably unhealthy for each the prosecution and protection, an important piece of video proof was deleted.
The sufferer, Jill Halliburton Su, was a grand-niece of the founding father of the Halliburton oil empire and the spouse of a College of Florida professor. She was extensively revered by locals for her volunteer work recording audiobooks for the blind.
Resiles, 28, has a rap sheet that features a number of housebreaking prices. His trial resulted in a mistrial after the jury forewoman accused different jurors of not eager to ship a black man to jail for all times or dying by deadly injection.
The jury had reached a verdict of manslaughter. However the forewoman spoke up in the course of the polling of the jury and stated she’d felt pressured into voting for the lesser cost and it ought to have been Homicide One.
The forewoman, who couldn't be reached by The Submit, spoke to the Solar-Sentinel in December. She described herself as a mixed-race Puerto Rican and stated she first agreed to the lesser cost of manslaughter, which carries a 15-year sentence, however stated she had achieved so beneath stress. She claimed three members of the jury didn't wish to sentence a black man to life in jail regardless that at one least one black juror stated that wasn’t true.
“I simply acquired a knot within the pit of my abdomen,” she stated of listening to the manslaughter verdict learn in court docket. “I appeared on the protection desk. They had been simply cheering and patting him on the again, like he graduated highschool or made the profitable landing at a soccer sport. I believed, ‘What have I achieved? Is that this the world I'm creating for my youngsters, a world the place somebody can get away with homicide due to the colour of their pores and skin?’”
However Resiles himself and his supporters assume the alternative. Removed from being given a break as a result of he’s black, they imagine he’s being railroaded — presumably by highly effective pursuits. A French filmmaker, Samuel Collardey, is making a six-part docuseries in regards to the case referred to as “Moochie,” Resiles’ nickname, to be launched this summer time.
A huge billboard studying: “Who Murdered Jill Halliburton? Who Framed Dayonte Resiles?” and “Free Moochie” sprung up throughout from the Broward County Sheriff’s workplace (BSO) in round Ft. Lauderdale a month earlier than Resiles’ first homicide trial.
Resiles’ first lawyer advised The Submit he felt the proof in opposition to Resiles was weak.
“There are quite a lot of query marks,” stated Williams. “I don’t assume the proof is robust sufficient. Resiles himself has no historical past of violence. One of many first burglaries he ever acquired caught for, he ran when it appeared like somebody was there.”
Williams identified that a neighbor of the Su household testified that noticed somebody who seemed to be pushing one thing into the entrance door of the Su residence. The witness didn't say that it was a physique or describe what the item may have been and couldn't inform if the individual she noticed was black or white.
“I don’t know precisely what she noticed however you possibly can’t push a physique again inside a door like that with out somebody on the opposite aspect pulling it in,” Williams stated. “There may have been multiple individual concerned. There may have been three.”
Su’s physique was present in her bathtub on Sept. 8, 2014. She and her husband, Nan Yao Su, now 71, had simply returned from a two-week trip in Malaysia the evening earlier than, based on prosecutors and courtroom testimony. The couple and their son lived in a $1.2 million residence in a gated group in Davie, 11 miles southwest of Fort Lauderdale.
(Nan Yao married a former analysis assistant on the College of Florida, Nadia Arodak, 32, in 2017. The 2 lived in the identical home the place Jill Su was killed — they usually divorced in 2020. Arodak sued one other man in a paternity swimsuit close to the identical time she filed for divorce from Nan Yao Su, based on Florida information.)
Nan Yao and Justin, now 28, each left the home the next morning. Nan Yao went to work and Justin supposedly went to class at a close-by group faculty.
Su’s slaying was found after Nan Yao checked the video feed of his residence from work and noticed what seemed to be a white man with some sort of masks or towel obscuring his face in the lounge.
He requested his son, who first advised police he was at school and later admitted he was sleeping in his automotive within the faculty parking storage, to go verify on the home and the intruder.
When Justin acquired residence, he discovered his mom’s physique within the blood-soaked waters of the bathtub with the water operating. He was questioned by cops who initially thought he may be an individual of curiosity.
“It was a massacre. She’s facedown on this bathtub that’s stuffed with blood. The odor’s like iron, a lot blood,” Justin testified on the second day of Resiles’ trial, telling the jury he dragged her out and tried to present her CPR earlier than calling 911.
His father returned again to the house after studying of the homicide.
Police stated a glass door close to the lounge had been shattered, indicating a break-in. Drawers in the master suite and one other bed room additionally appeared to have been tampered with, based on police.
Justin was later cleared when Davie police discovered DNA on a belt loop and a knife close to the entrance door that matched Resiles’, though his DNA was not discovered on the homicide weapon — believed to be the knife discovered on the backside of the bloody bathtub.
Each knives belonged to Justin Su, Resiles’ present protection lawyer Allari Dominguez advised The Submit. The one discovered within the tub was a dagger-type knife that Jill Su had given to her son as a gift. The one DNA discovered on it belonged to Justin and his mom. Each Dominguez and Williams advised The Submit they discovered it very unusual that Resiles’ DNA was not discovered on the homicide weapon if prosecutors say he killed Jill.
Prosecutors assume Resiles, whose final identified tackle was about 25 miles away, broke into the home to burglarize it and killed Su as a result of she may determine him later. AttorneyMaria Schneider stated in the course of the trial in December that she didn’t should show a motive for the crime. His courtroom escape in 2016 from the Broward courthouse and his later efforts to invent an alibi indicated how far he would go to attempt to get himself off, she stated.
“Justin Su is fortunate that they discovered DNA to match another person’s as a result of these cops had been satisfied he did it,” Williams stated. “They held him for 13 hours in an interview room. These police had been coming out and in saying, “Confess you recognize you probably did it.'”
As for the white man seen within the residence surveillance video, Nan Yao testified that police had initially requested him if the individual he noticed on the video surveillance tape was black or white and he stated white. However on the stand he stated he wasn’t positive. One concept is that Justin had many events on the home and Nan Yao may need thought it was a good friend of his. One other concept is that it was an acquaintance of Justin who had cased the home beforehand.
“There are simply so many unusual coincidences on this case,” Dominguez advised The Submit.
Justin left the household residence someday round 9am and Nan Yao between 11:30 and 11:40 a.m. on the day or the homicide. Nan Yao advised police he checked the video his residence surveillance digicam when he started working and noticed an obvious intruder within the residence. He referred to as his son, who returned to the home at 12:37pm.
“An hour will not be a very long time to interrupt right into a home, homicide somebody and depart,” Dominguez stated.
A detective who responded to the scene testified at Resiles’ first homicide trial in December about what he noticed.
“She was laying there; she was carrying solely underwear,” Davie police Det. Paul Williams stated. “I observed a number of stab wounds on her physique. Her arms had been by her chest. Her elbows clenched up. Her wrists had been certain along with material, a belt to a gown. Her toes had been tightly certain. Her ankles had been certain by an electrical twine.”
The Broward Medical Examiner testified that Su sustained between 23 and 27 stab wounds.
The sufferer and her husband had signed up for a free, 30-day-long trial subscription to video surveillance someday earlier than their journey. However in an unimaginable accident, police discovered that the trial expired across the day earlier than the homicide — and the surveillance firm had deleted all video taken on the Su residence, together with on the day of the killing when Nan Yao noticed an intruder on the reside feed.
Pals and supporters of Resiles, who’s about to face trial for a second time this month, are so satisfied he’s harmless that they allegedy helped him engineer a daring courthouse escape in 2016.
In a stunt that made nationwide information, Resiles jumped up and bolted previous a bailiff throughout a pretrial listening to and managed to slide out of his handcuffs and jumpsuit whereas operating down the steps and out the door. He was on the lam for six days earlier than being captured at a motel in Riviera Seashore, about an hour away.
Dohn Williams, Resiles’ lawyer on the time, advised The Submit that cops initially requested him if he knew who had slipped a handcuff key to Resiles. It was later found that a jail guard, one other Haitian-American like Resiles, had given the suspect a key, Williams stated. The guard was later fired or resigned, he added.
“It was one of many more strange occasions of my profession,” Williams stated.
Seven individuals had been later arrested as accomplices within the daring escape, together with a pregnant teenager who used a three-way calling approach to permit Resiles to speak with others from jail, CBS Information reported.
9 extra associates of Resiles, together with a girlfriend, had been then arrested in 2017 in reference to a RICO investigation referred to as “Operation Rico Suave.” They had been charged in an elaborate scheme to assist Resiles’ set up an alibi protection. Some have pleaded responsible and been sentenced.
Resiles advised the New Miami Instances that the arrests had been trumped-up in retaliation for what he had achieved.
“There's a conspiracy in opposition to me,” Resiles stated. “My alleged escape resulted in a nationwide manhunt and was publicized in media retailers. The BSO and [Sheriff] Scott Israel have it out for me for that purpose particularly … It's no secret to me that I’m Broward Sheriff’s most hated.”
Dohn Williams stated the second trial, which is predicted to begin this week, could also be “fraught with doubt,” including that the deleted video surveillance tape was essentially the most essential plot level within the case.
“That was make or break proof,” he stated. “The truth that it was deleted is pure happenstance nevertheless it’s unimaginable. We have now to attend and see what new twist and turns the case could take.”
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