[chris]

Dayonte Resiles was convicted of first-degree murder on March 18, 2022, in the killing of Jill Halliburton Su, 59, in Davie, Florida, and sentenced to life in prison on May 20, 2022. Prosecutors said after the verdict they would not seek the death penalty. Resiles told the court, "I did not kill Mrs. Su." He was also sentenced that day on escape charges from 2016 and several 2014 burglary counts. Florida Department of Corrections records list him serving life at Martin Correctional Institution.

His first trial opened November 17, 2021. The jury announced a verdict on the lesser charge of manslaughter, but one juror said she did not agree when the jurors were polled. The judge declared a mistrial on December 8, 2021. At the retrial, the defense argued that cross-contamination had flawed the DNA evidence.

Su lived with her husband in Westridge, a gated community in Davie, in Broward County. The couple had two children. For about nine years, she had volunteered at Insight for the Blind in Fort Lauderdale, recording material for blind readers. Resiles, of Sunrise, was 19 at the time of the killing and out on bond in pending home burglary cases. Police said he had no known connection to the family.

On September 8, 2014, Su's son went to the house after his father, at work, could no longer see the home's surveillance camera feed. He found her in a bathtub of bloody water with her wrists and ankles bound. Court testimony put the number of stab wounds at about 25. A rear glass door by the pool had been smashed, drawers and jewelry boxes had been searched, and the alarm panel had been torn from a closet wall. A knife lay at the front door and a belt on the mat just inside it. Prosecutors later said Su interrupted a burglary.

Detectives initially looked at Su's son, who was cleared and never charged. Prosecutors said a mixture of Resiles's DNA and Su's was found on the belt believed to have been used to bind her. The arrest warrant also cited his DNA on the knife. His DNA profile was already on file from a previous arrest.

Resiles was taken into custody in Sunrise on September 18, 2014, and brought to the Davie Police Department. According to the department's case file, he was read his rights at 12:17 p.m. in interview room 214, asked for a lawyer and refused to answer questions. He was told the charges, agreed to an oral DNA swab, and had his clothing collected. At his first court appearance the next day, his lawyer invoked his right to remain silent, and he was held without bond. He has denied the killing throughout.

During a July 15, 2016, hearing at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Resiles slipped his shackles in the jury box with help from another inmate, according to investigators. He jumped a barrier, ran past bailiffs and down several flights of stairs, and left in a waiting car. Several people were charged with helping him. He surrendered to a SWAT team shortly before 11 p.m. on July 20, 2016, at a Days Inn in West Palm Beach.

[chris]

Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.