Opinion: On a murder's 40th anniversary, how is the killer still alive?
When the home economics teacher was found dead on a dirt road, she was clutching her husband's catcher's mitt to her chest for comfort, making this perhaps the saddest murder story of them all.
Sherilyn Johnson and Larry Ritchie were high school sweethearts. They married, and life was as wonderful as they imagined it could be. She taught at Palmetto High. He coached baseball. Then, in 1983, she took the year off for the greatest reason of all: They were going to have a child.
Around 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 16, 1983, she pulled her orange Toyota Corolla into a parking space at the DeSoto Square Mall in Bradenton. Two men in their early 20s appeared. Their names were Robert Glock and Carl Puiatti. Short of money, they had been waiting for someone to rob.
Glock pulled out a .38-caliber pistol from a handbag and pointed it at Ritchie, who was alone. She screamed. They forced her into the backseat and drove away. With Puiatti at the wheel, Glock took $50 from Ritchie’s purse along with her wedding ring. Then they went to a bank in Palmetto where Ritchie withdrew $100 more.
They drove 60 miles to a dirt road in an orange grove near Dade City and dropped her off.
Before she left the car, she requested her purse and the catcher's mitt that belonged to her husband he kept in their car. They granted her request and drove off, but fearing she could ID them, they turned around. Glock shot her twice, but she wasn't dead.
They came back again, and Puitti shot her. Still not dead. They came back a third time, and Glock shot her again. As they drove off, they saw her stumble 10 yards and fall. This time, yes, they made sure she was dead.
In what has to be one of the saddest images ever associated with a murder, something sickening and yet oddly touching at the same time, she was still hanging on to the catcher's mitt for comfort when her body was found.
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After Glock and Puiatti killed her, they drove to Ocala, pawned her wedding ring for $200, shot pool, and drank beer. Then it was on to South Carolina for a little fishing fun. They were arrested on the New Jersey Turnpike. Eventually, they were given the Death Penalty.
On Jan. 11, 2001, 17 years after Ritchie’s murder, Glock was executed by the state of Florida, but not before he married a steelworker from Indiana in prison, and not before a last meal consisting of a New York strip steak, fried shrimp, French fries, green beans, Coca-Cola and some Heavenly Hash ice cream.
He gave a final statement: "I killed Ms. Ritchie. I'm sorry for it. I believe that killing to prove killing is wrong, is wrong."
Kermit Johnson, Ritchie's father, said at the time of the execution "August 16, 1983, for our family, is a day that will live in infamy, just as December 7, 1941, did for our nation."
As for Puiatti, well, next week marks the 40th anniversary of the murder, and he still sits on Death Row.
How is this man still alive?
Appeals, apparently.
Of the 292 Death Row inmates in this state, only 21 have been there longer than Puiatti.
If you are going to have the Death Penalty then have the Death Penalty. Four decades. Really?
At least the years haven't been kind to Puiatti. Check out his prison mug shot sometime.
He now looks like an old, leathery, worn-out catcher's mitt, sitting alone in a water-stained box in the garage, waiting to be thrown out just as soon as someone gets around to it.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Opinion: It's time for the killer of a Palmetto woman to pay up
