Two men convicted of killing six people in Deltona in 2004 in one of Central Florida’s most notorious mass killings known as the “Xbox murders” were given the death penalty again during a resentencing hearing Monday.
Troy Victorino, 48, and Jerone Hunter, 39, had their original death penalty sentences from 2006 thrown out after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2016 said Florida’s death penalty system was unconstitutional. Both convicts’ death penalty sentences came from juries that were not unanimous.
A jury in May this year, though, recommended again they be given the death penalty during new sentencing hearings, but a judge had yet to give final ruling on that recommendation.
Troy Victorino is fingerprinted after being sentenced to death on Thursday, September 21, 2006 in the Deltona massacre, also known as the “Xbox murders.” Jerone Hunter was also sentenced to die. (Dennis Wall/Orlando Sentinel file)
That came Monday morning at the Volusia County Courthouse when Judge Dawn Nichols with Florida’s 7th Judicial circuit confirmed the pair would head back to death row.
Both were present at the courtroom, and neither showed emotion after the judge affirmed the death sentence recommendations.
Associated Press
These undated photos provided by the families show Michelle Nathan; Jonathan Gleason; Anthony Vega, and Roberto Gonzalez, from left, who along with Erin Belanger and Francisco Ayo Roman were killed in Deltona, Fla., in 2004. Troy Victorino, 29, Michael Salas and Jerone Hunter, both 20, accused of killing them in a revenge slaying over an Xbox video game system, were convicted of first-degree murder in St. Augustine, Fla. Tuesday, July 25, 2006. The jury of seven women and five men deliberated about six hours before returning its verdict.
The two had been convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of Jonathan Gleason, 17; Michelle Nathan, 19; Erin Belanger, 22; Roberto Gonzalez, 28; Francisco Ayo Roman, 30; and Anthony Vega, 34. Two other suspects convicted in the murders, Michael Salas and Robert Cannon, remain in prison with life sentences.
All four were accused of beating the six victims to death along with a dog with aluminum baseball bats inside a home on Telford Lane in August 2004. The case was dubbed by media as the “Xbox murders” because one of the motives according to prosecutors behind the crime was Victorino retrieving an Xbox from the house claiming it had been stolen.
All the victims died of blunt force trauma to the head, but had also suffered stab wounds, the medical examiner’s office said.
The resentencing comes 21 years after the original crime, and had also gone through a 2023 resentencing mistrial. That came because on the same day a new jury had been seated for the resentencing trial, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in a new law that removed the need for a unanimous decision, but instead allowed for 8-4 jury decisions in capital crime cases.
“It is a sad reality that death penalty cases drag on for decades,” said State Attorney R.J. Larizza in a press release. “The families of our six victims have suffered over and over again due to numerous appeals requiring new court proceedings. Perhaps now the defendants’ death warrants will be signed and carried out expeditiously.”
Attorneys for the two men, though, can begin appeals of the sentences.