- April 19, 2024
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An attorney for Joseph Frank Bova II, the defendant accused of killing convenience store clerk Zuheily Rosado in a Feb. 21 execution-style shooting at a Mobil gas station on State Road 100, plans to submit pretrial evidence that Bova is insane.
Fort Lauderdale-based attorney George Reres would like the state to remove the death penalty as a possible sentence if Bova is convicted.
“He has severe, severe mental illness that may well have had a lot to do with the circumstances,” Reres said.
Reres, a former supervisor of the Broward Public Defender's Office Homicide Division, is working on the case with Jacksonville-based law firm Finnell, McGuinness, Nezami & Andux. He said mental illness is one of the strongest arguments against a state seeking the death penalty.
Bova has not yet been diagnosed with a mental illness, Reres said, but the defense team already has doctors working on the case.
“The state should consider the totality of the circumstances, as they almost always do in these cases,” he said. “We’re going to provide them with what we have early on, so they can make an informed decision.”
Bova, 25 and a former resident of 4600 E. Moody Blvd in Bunnell, was arrested Sept. 12 by detectives in Boca Raton.
He’d left town soon after the murder, and an anonymous tipster turned him through Crime Stoppers after recognizing him in surveillance footage police released from the crime.
When detectives found Bova, he was living out of his vehicle. Detectives searched it, and found a SCCY 9-mm semiautomatic handgun. Later, ballistics tests revealed the gun was the one used in the murder, police said at a Sept. 14 press conference.
When detectives questioned Bova, he seemed lucid and was able to answer questions. He had no known criminal history, no known history of mental illness, and no known connection to Rosado. There is no clear motive for the crime, officials said.
Attorneys from Finnell, McGuinness, Nezami & Andux could not be reached for comment.
