Death Penalty For White Supremacist Killer Of Florida Gay Couple: “Homosexuals Are A Disease To Mankind”
The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel reports:
Peter Avsenew, convicted of killing a Wilton Manors couple days before Christmas 2010 and stealing their car to escape to north Florida, who told a jury in January that he had no regrets and a judge in March that he had killed before and would again, has been sentenced to die.
He is the first defendant in Broward to receive a death sentence since a new law was passed in 2017 requiring juries to be unanimous in finding an execution is warranted. It seemed to be the result Avsenew wanted — after his conviction last fall for the murders of Stephen Adams and Kevin Powell, a Wilton Manors couple who took him in after he posted a sexually suggestive classified ad on Craigslist.
Adams and Powell had been together for nearly 30 years. But Avsenew’s comments about them, in his letter, were without mercy. “It is my duty as a white man to cull the weak and timid from existence.” Avsenew, 33, wrote. “Homosexuals are a disease to mankind and must be put down.”
The judge could have rejected the jury’s recommendation for a death sentence, but apparently the killer’s letter did the trick. As you can see in the photo above, he gave the finger to family members of the victims earlier this year.