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11-10-2015, 12:35 PM
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Florida Man Sentenced to Death in Sister's Murders
John William Kalisz was sentenced to death for killing two women and wounding two others at his sister's home west of Brooksville on Jan. 14, 2010, after a survivor played dead and called 911. Kalisz walked into the Wilhelm Road home of his sister, Kathryn "Kitty" Donovan, 61, and opened fire with a 9 mm pistol, according to court records and the Tampa Bay Times. Donovan and her office manager, Deborah Tillotson, 59, were killed. Donovan's daughter Manessa Donovan and Amy Green, an employee of Donovan's home-based business, were wounded and survived. Green, identified in Florida Supreme Court records as Amy Wilson, testified that she was walking toward the house from the back yard when she heard a bang and saw Donovan slide down a glass door. She shouted at the other two women to run, then a round struck her in the stomach and she collapsed. Kalisz walked over and kicked her foot, she said, and she yelled, "Who are you? Why are you doing this? I don't even know you." He fired again. "I acted like I was dead," she testified, "so he would stop shooting us and leave." Her 911 call was played for jurors, who heard her give a physical description of a man she did not recognize while she used a phone in her pocket and told a Hernando County sheriff's dispatcher that she and three other women had been hit. Manessa Donovan also played dead after being shot, and later told deputies her uncle was the gunman, according to the Florida Supreme Court's account. Kalisz had been convicted in October 2009 of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and contributing to the delinquency of a minor in a case involving his niece, and was serving six years of probation. He told investigators his sister and niece were liars and that he had set out to erase his sister's bloodline, court records show. He then drove north in his van to Cross City in Dixie County, where Sheriff's Capt. Chad Allen Reed Sr., 33, confronted him at a gas station. Kalisz shot Reed in the mouth. Deputies returned fire and hit Kalisz at least six times. Reed, a married father of two sons, died. Kalisz pleaded guilty to Reed's murder in 2011 and was sentenced to life in prison. A Hernando County jury convicted Kalisz in January 2012 of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder, then voted 12 to 0 to recommend death. Circuit Judge Daniel Merritt Sr. imposed two death sentences on March 6, 2012, and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed them in October 2013. Kalisz died Nov. 3, 2015, on death row at Florida State Prison at age 61. A sister told the Tampa Bay Times he died of natural causes in a hospital, and the Florida Department of Corrections said its inspector general was reviewing the death, as it does with any inmate death.
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