GUILTY FL - Margarita Ruiz, 72, & Esperanza Wells, 42, murdered, Tarrytown, 15 March 2000

[Beyond Belief]

SUMTER COUNTY, Fla. -- Haunting pictures from nearly a thousand miles away may have solved a gruesome Central Florida murder.



The crime likely would have gone unsolved except for the tenaciousness of a man far, far away.



Linden Cemetery is the final resting place for Margarita Ruiz and Hope Wells, a mother and daughter who died the same day.



"They were very spiritual. They prayed a lot," said Rachel Smith, Margarita Ruiz' youngest daughter. She visits the graves every Sunday but it does not ease her pain.



"Not really," she said. "There were times I didn't think they were ever going to find who did it."



Her mother and sister were murdered. On the morning of March 15th, 2000, an intruder invaded their Tarrytown cottage in Sumter County and shot and stabbed to death the two women.

http://www.wftv.com/news/10310640/detail.html

 

[txsvicki]

That is really something. The investigator felt that the women were looking right at him when scanning pics for double murders, even though the murder was so many miles away.

 

[Opie]

Thank God for police officers who feel so strongly about doing their jobs. Good for this one.

 

[SieSie]

Wow, what a great job that D.A. did matching the blood from the knife to the two women. Amazing that the perp was found not guilty in the murder of his mother! I hope he's at least brought to justice for the crimes against these two women.

Chippewa Falls is in Wisconsin, 1,200 miles north of Sumter County and where Bill Paul Marquardt was on trial for murder.

"The victim in this case was his mother," said Theisen.

Jon Theisen was the district attorney. He had the murder weapons, a gun and a bloody knife. But Marquardt was found not guilty. The knife had his mother's' blood on it and the blood of two other women. So, Theisen checked law enforcement web sites across the country, looking for a double murder. He came across the unsolved case of Ruiz and Wells.

More at link.

 

[Kat]

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...d-case-murders-esperanza-wells-bill-marquardt


Paranoid schizophrenic man found guilty in cold-case murders


October 12, 2011|By Stephen Hudak, Orlando Sentinel

...finding a Wisconsin man guilty of the mysterious murders of Margarita Ruiz and her daughter Esperanza Wells, shot and stabbed to death 11 years ago.

Bill Marquardt...

 

[fran]

I know they say this guy is mentally ill, but isn't everyone who kills someone, sick in a way? But I do NOT believe he's as crazy as they say. He's just a sick individual who would kill again if he has a chance. He has no remorse.

He's a phsycopath.

JMHO
fran

 

[LCoastMom]

Murder evidence thrown out

Last year, Marquardt was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect on animal cruelty charges and is serving a 75-year sentence under mental health care. That finding is not affected by Judge Roderick Cameron's ruling.

However, the same legal issues involved in Cameron's ruling could ultimately jeopardize the Eau Claire conviction.

Cameron ruled Friday that a March 15, 2000 search warrant served at Bill Marquardt's cabin in the Eau Claire County town of Fairchild lacked any facts at all that would link Marquardt or his residence to the case.

He further ruled that the state did not meet the criteria for a "good faith exception" to rules calling for exclusion of evidence seized as a result of a defective search.
Therefore, all of the evidence seized as a result of the search warrant had to be excluded from trial, Cameron ruled.

http://chippewa.com/news/article_44089bdd-acad-50c8-bbb3-9d5844cdfd43.html

If I read this correctly he got off on his mother's murder on a technicality.

 

[LCoastMom]

http://chippewa.com/news/local/article_acc41ddc-7c19-11df-8420-001cc4c002e0.html

http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/showthread.php?5792-Bill-Marquardt-Found-Guilty-in-FL-Double-Homicide

http://chippewa.com/news/article_44089bdd-acad-50c8-bbb3-9d5844cdfd43.html

http://www.dailycommercial.com/localnews/story/101211trial

http://www.dailycommercial.com/storygallery/101211trial#http://assets.mediaspanonline.com/prod/7101666/101211trial1_h400.jpg

He's capable of changing his look similar to Nick Sheley.

 

[LCoastMom]

I know they say this guy is mentally ill, but isn't everyone who kills someone, sick in a way? But I do NOT believe he's as crazy as they say. He's just a sick individual who would kill again if he has a chance. He has no remorse.

He's a phsycopath.

JMHO
fran

Know what Fran? I no longer believe the "mentally ill" tag they slap on these murderers. Andrea Yates IMO is/was mentally ill. These cold blooded murderers are crazy but not ill IYKWIM. Crazy mean, crazy ugly, batsheet crazy but not mentally ill. They are lacking their humanity gene or something - but they know exactly what they are doing and will do it again and again, given the opportunity.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...-paul-marquardt-esperanza-wells-double-murder

A Wisconsin man convicted of a double murder in rural Sumter County that had gone unsolved for years received a death sentence for slayings the judge described as "heinous, atrocious and cruel."

Circuit Judge William H. Hallman III in Bushnell ruled Bill Paul Marquardt, a 36-year-old man diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, should die by lethal injection for the slayings 12 years ago of Margarita Ruiz and her daughter Esperanza Wells.