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Mark
Louis DUFAULT
Classification: Homicide
Characteristics:
Juvenile (14) - For
no apparent reason
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder: October 16, 1998
Date of arrest:
Same day
Date of birth: November 27, 1983
Victim profile: Joyce Adams, 60 (his grandmother)
Method of murder:
Stabbing with a paring knife
Location: Seminole County, Florida, USA
Status:
Sentenced to life in prison without parole on March 16, 2000
Teen Who Killed His Grandma Gets
Life
By Rene Stutzman -
OrlandoSentinel.com
March 17, 2000
SANFORD - Mark
Louis Dufault, who at 14 stabbed his grandmother to death with a
paring knife for no apparent reason, will spend the rest of his life
in prison.
A jury took 21/2
hours to convict him Thursday of first-degree murder. Circuit Judge
Alan Dickey sentenced Dufault, now 16, to a life sentence without
parole, the only sentence allowed under state law.
Although Dufault
was tried as an adult, he did not face the death penalty because he
was younger than 16 when he killed his grandmother in October of 1998.
He is now one of
the youngest ''lifers'' in the
state prison system.
The youngest is
Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips, 16, the Jacksonville boy convicted of
first-degree murder last year for beating an 8-year-old neighbor girl
to death and then hiding her body beneath his waterbed for several
days.
Dufault is 31/2
months older than Phillips.
Although it's
not clear where Dufault will serve his sentence, he'll be imprisoned
with adults, not juveniles, said Debbie Buchanan, a spokeswoman for
the Florida Department of Corrections.
Dufault closed
his eyes when the verdict was read but otherwise showed no emotion.
With his ankles shackled, he shuffled obediently from the defense
table to the podium, when the judge ordered him to stand for
sentencing.
He did not
testify at his three-day trial. In fact, his attorneys presented no
evidence of any kind. Defense attorney Tim Caudill spent most of his
closing argument Thursday urging jurors to convict Dufault of the
lesser charge of second-degree murder, which carried a minimum
sentence of 211/2 years in prison.
Caudill insisted
the killing was not premeditated.
''There is no evidence of any
plan or motive,'' he said.
That was the
most curious thing about the case. Dufault says he was not angry with
his grandmother, Joyce Adams, 60, a cafeteria manager at Longwood
Elementary School.
The boy and his
grandmother had listened to music together, then he had gone into the
bedroom where he sometimes slept and began cleaning it, according to
two confessions he gave that day.
Adams was in her
bedroom, putting on makeup, when a rage came over the boy, and he
decided to kill his grandmother, he told police. He went into the
kitchen and got the knife.
He hid it in his
back pocket and walked into her bedroom, talking to her as he
approached. He then clamped his left hand over her mouth. There was a
struggle, and he began stabbing her, according to his confession.
The medical
examiner identified six knife wounds. None was particularly deep, but
one blow pushed the knife through her breastbone and into her aorta,
the main artery leading from her heart.
That was the
fatal wound, said Palm Beach County Deputy Medical Examiner Charles
Siebert.
''I don't know why I did it,''
Dufault told police.
Seminole Boy Heads For Trial In Killing
His Grandmother Was An Easy Target For Mark Louis Dufault's Rage,
Prosecutors Say
By Rene Stutzman -
OrlandoSentinel.com
March 12, 2000
SANFORD - In
his videotaped confession, Mark Louis Dufault, a quiet, overweight
14-year-old, says he wasn't angry with his grandmother the day he
killed her.
The only
explanation he gives for stabbing her to death with a paring knife was
that he had an inner rage and needed an outlet. His grandmother, who
at 125 pounds was half his size, was an easy target.
The family
tragedy will play itself out in court this week when Dufault, now 16,
stands trial on a first-degree murder charge.
To prosecutors,
there isn't much question that Dufault killed Joyce Adams, a
60-year-old school cook, as she stood in front of her bedroom mirror
putting on makeup in their Lake Mary home in 1998.
His father, who
pulled Dufault off of Adams during the attack, is set to testify
against him. Then there's the matter of Dufault's confession.
This month,
defense attorneys lost their bid to keep part of the confession out of
the trial. They argued Dufault was in an emotional state when he gave
the statement and didn't understand what he was saying.
What no one will
likely explain during the trial is why Dufault - whose prior juvenile
record included a charge of sexually abusing a child - would have
committed the crime. He told police a rage came over him, and he
simply decided to kill someone, said Lake Mary police Detective Camiel
Long.
Adams was
stabbed five times - twice in the chest. The knife was only 5 inches
long, but it pierced her aorta, the main artery leading from the
heart.
While she lay on
the floor, bleeding to death, Dufault
''was
standing there by the bed, banging himself in the head with the phone
- calling himself stupid,'' his father said in a sworn statement.
However,
psychological tests show Dufault is not stupid. He is an above-average
reader and a good artist. He had, at times, a miserable school record.
But lately, his class work inside the Seminole County Jail has been
good. In fact, he is helping other inmates learn how to use computers,
said jail director Maj. Greg Futch.
At the time of
the slaying, Dufault was a sophomore at Seminole High School but was
under house arrest because a year and a half earlier he had been
charged with sexually abusing a girl under the age of 12. Dufault
admitted the incident to police.
It's not clear
how much supervision he got at home. According to an evaluation by the
Florida Department of Children & Families, he smoked two packs of
cigarettes a day, a habit he started at age 7. He sometimes drank
vodka, tequila and rum, and had smoked marijuana since he was 12. His
parents divorced in 1994.
Both parents
were arrested in 1997 after their son's sexual-abuse arrest. The
victim's mother told police that Dufault's father, Mark Neil Dufault,
37, threatened to kill her with a kitchen knife if she told
authorities about the abuse. She also accused Janet Dufault, 31, of
threatening her.
Both parents
were charged with witness tampering but entered pleas to lesser
charges.
As for this
trial, defense attorney Tim Caudill would not discuss his strategy. He
may argue the boy is mentally ill, though not insane. He may call two
witnesses to testify about Dufault's emotional state.
A few months
ago, Dufault told a psychiatrist and psychologist in separate
interviews that he does not remember the slaying.
The one point
that neither side disputes is that Dufault loved his grandmother, and
she loved him. There is no evidence she had done anything to provoke
him.
''She was the only one who was
nice to him,'' said Long, the detective who led the slaying
investigation.
14-year-old
Is Indicted In Grandmother's Death
OrlandoSentinel.com
November 3, 1998
SANFORD - A
Seminole County grand jury Monday indicted 14-year-old Mark Louis
Dufault on a charge of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of
his grandmother.
Dufault's
grandmother, Joyce Adams, was killed in her home Oct. 16.
Afterward,
Dufault told authorities the only way for him to release his pent-up
rage was to kill somebody.
The Lake Mary
teenager is the second 14-year-old indicted in Seminole County in
seven months on a charge of first-degree murder.
In April,
Jonathan Arce of Oviedo was indicted in the stabbing death of his
neighbor, June Stillman, 68, who was found dead in her garage March
10.
Both are being
prosecuted as adults. Because of their ages, they cannot be sentenced
to death.
Teen Held In
Killing Of Grandma Was On Probation
The Lake Mary
Youth Admitted To Police Last Year That He Performed Lewd And
Lascivious Acts On A Child
By Elaine
Backhouse - OrlandoSentinel.com
October 20, 1998
LAKE MARY - A
teenager charged in the stabbing death of his grandmother was on
probation at the time for committing a lewd and lascivious act on a
child, Lake Mary police said.
Seminole County
court records also show that Mark Louis Dufault, 14, admitted to
police last year that he performed the acts on the young girl on two
occasions near his grandmother's home at 229 Byron Ave.
Meanwhile, the
Seminole-Brevard State Attorney's Office said Monday it plans to
charge the teenager as an adult in the death of his grandmother, Joyce
Marie Adams, 60, who was stabbed six times Friday with a paring knife
in the bedroom of her home. Dufault, a ninth-grader at Seminole High
School in Sanford, is being held on a murder charge at the Seminole
County Juvenile Detention Center.
An autopsy
Monday showed Adams bled to death from a stab wound to her aorta. The
food service manager at Longwood Elementary School had also been
stabbed once in the right lung - which collapsed - once in her left
knee, neck and in each arm, police Capt. Sam Belfiore said.
Lake Mary police
investigators said the boy said he attacked his grandmother from the
back, placing his hand over her mouth, and that the two had struggled
on the bed.
The boy's
father, Mark Neil Dufault, 36, who was living with his mother and was
awakened by her screams, pulled his son off Adams, but it was too
late, police said.
The boy told
investigators that he had a lot of ''pent-up anger,'' and the only way
to release it was to kill someone, investigators said.
Lake Mary police
had previous contact with the teenager, as well as his parents.
About the same
time Lake Mary police arrested the boy in the March 1997 lewd and
lascivious case, they also arrested his divorced parents and charged
them with witness tampering in the incident.
Court records
show Mark Neil Dufault and Janet Dufault, also 36, were arrested after
the victim's mother said they had threatened to harm her if she
notified police about what had happened.
The victim's
mother also told police that the couple said they didn't want their
son to go to jail, and that at one point the boy's father told her he
was going to get a knife from the kitchen, court records state.
The boy's
parents later pleaded no contest to reduced charges, and each paid a
$100 fine.
When police
questioned Adams about what she knew about the witness-tampering
incident, court records state, she lowered her head after telling
investigators that she didn't want to get involved. Minutes later,
though, she told police that she was in her bedroom when her son and
former daughter-in-law were talking with the victim's mother. Court
records state Adams told police that she didn't hear everything that
was said, but that she didn't think her son actually would have harmed
the woman.
Adams, who had
worked for the Seminole County school district for more than 20 years,
had been the food service manager at Longwood Elementary for three
years.
Monday,
counselors went to the school to help Adams' co-workers and students
deal with their grief.
Dan Andrews, the
district's food service director, called Adams a ''dear, sweet lady''
who doted on her grandson and loved working with students.
''She was very
positive, very friendly, very giving,'' Andrews said. ''She just loved
the kids."
