The Miramar Murders EP 1 | The Crime | Forensic Files

All right, we're back on the record, "State of Florida versus Pablo Ibar," case number 93413062-CF-10b.
Mr. Ibar is present with counsel. State's present. For obvious, reasons no matter what the verdicts are,
somebody is going to be very unhappy. Somebody is going to be very happy. You have a right to be present during any kind
of court proceeding unless you disrupt the proceedings. So if anybody cheers, or claps, or jeers, or hisses,
or makes any noise, or reacts physically in any way to the verdicts, you'll be immediately
escorted out of the courtroom. State ready? - Yes, sir. - Defense ready? Yes, sir.
All right, the verdicts are in legal order. The verdicts read as follows. In the Circuit Court of the 17th Judicial Circuit
in and for Broward County, Florida, Judge Dennis D. Bailey State of Florida plaintiff versus Pablo Manuel Ibar
defendant, verdict count one. We the jury, finds as follows as to count one-- BUTCH CASEY (ON PHONE): Hello.
You have now reached the Casey residence. I'm not home presently, but I shall return very, very shortly.
CANDY (ON PHONE): Hello, hello. This is Candy. Are you there? I need to speak to you.
Bye. SHERRY (ON PHONE): Hey, Butch. This is Sherry. How you guys doing? Look, I have some good news for you too, Butch.
Privately. Oh, my. [giggles] [dialing] PETER (ON PHONE): Mr. Butch, this is Peter.
Are you awake, señor? OK, I guess you're not awake. If you wake up within the next 5, 10 minutes,
please give me a call at the club. Thank you. Butch, Butch, Butch. Pick it up. You're not going to answer?
Give me a call. Hey, come on back. OK, bye. BRYAN (ON PHONE): Hello, daddy. Daddy, please pick up the phone.
[sighs] Hello, hello? [beeping] He was known as Butch Casey to his friends. Around 2:30 this morning, Casimir Sucharski
was found murdered in his Miramar home along with two other people, Marie Rogers of Hollywood
and Sharon Anderson of Miami. Police are saying little about what they found inside the house except there
was a lot of blood. They won't say how the victims were murdered or whether there are signs of forced entry.
I've known him about 13 years. 13 years. And I've known him to be a super really nice guy.
And I know he has a lot of parties and friends and stuff like that, but I don't understand why this--
something like this would happen to a nice person like that. [thunder rumbles] JOHN HOLLAND: I just joined the newspaper a few months
before the murders. It was just a whole different world back then. There were a lot of murders in Florida.
All the way through, this is not how normal murder cases-- the drugs, the sex, it was part of the story.
And I think everyone got caught up on it. I think some of my stories, looking back on them,
may have been a little too explicit. The death notifications to the victims' parents or family,
after learning that their loved one had passed away, was killed violently, that's the hardest part of my job.
I would like to think I investigate cases very objectively as a police officer. The evidence took me where it took me, and I followed that.
And things were moved. This was very unusual for me. I've been assigned other homicides where
it may have been two or three victims, but it was more drug-related. Really didn't know of a motive at this particular point.
This was more senseless, why this even happened. It was an execution. Possibly money, drugs, something specific that they
may have been looking for. There was a safe in his closet in his bedroom that was opened,
and things were moved. His black Mercedes was not there when we arrived. Obviously, somebody had taken his car.
And then later on that day, we learned a black Mercedes that was burnt out in the field.
But were things on scene, like his necklace was gold, rings and stuff like the ladies were
wearing that they didn't take. So again, it may not been jewelry or gold or anything like that.
It was a long, grueling, complicated case. But it's a job. It's a job that I've been doing for over three decades
My name is Chuck Morton. I worked full time for the Broward state attorney's office
for 36.5 years. No cost is too much for murders of this magnitude. When three people are brutally and viciously, cold bloodedly
executed and murdered and killed the way these three people were, we have an obligation
to do whatever we can and spend whatever we can to bring to justice the people that
commit these kinds of crimes. Mr. Sucharski was a very security conscious person mainly because of the type of business
he was in. Being in the bar business, being a rather flashy individual with a lot of jewelry, known to carry a lot of money,
had access to a lot of material things. Sucharski carried guns. He used drugs openly.
He had safes in his house that were full of drugs and money and guns when the police came in
and found the bodies. He was convicted of several drug cases. In fact, was not permitted to own a nightclub
because of these convictions. Casey's Nickelodeon we found out was in the name of someone else.
This photo of Sucharski was taken in 1987 when he was arrested by police on a charge
of aggravated battery. He was best known as the owner of Casey's Nickelodeon, a popular restaurant
and bar on Hallandale Beach Boulevard. It was, however, closed down by police for a time
in 1983 because of drug activity. Tonight, it's closed again, shut down earlier in the day
when news of his murder reached his employees. You know, it's a very popular club
because it was one of those that stayed open later than usual. I've been to his club before, once or twice.
But I didn't know him personally. It was the "it" place to be for a certain segment
of the society. There'd be police officers and judges. Everyone was going to his club, and everyone
knew what his club was. Sucharski seemed like he would have been an interesting guy to know.
I was probably around 14 or 15, and I expressed to my mother. I asked her if I could meet my father.
She began to understand how important it was for me to meet him and understand who he is.
And when I did go down there, he said, oh, you must be Bryan. I said, yeah. And we shook hands.
It was just the first moment. I remember these phone calls at 6:30 in the morning.
He would just be closing the bar up. So I'd get a phone call, and he'd be like, hey,
it's your old man. What are you-- what are you doing? We got a sense that something bad
was going to happen to Casey. He expressed that on telephone conversations with his son, Bryan.
But we just didn't know what it was. I mean, I can't tell you what was in his head,
what he was trying to convey as far as what was going to happen. Here's the transcript right here.
He didn't sound quite right. I mean, he sounded stressed, kind of upset. You know, right at that time I didn't think about it.
I didn't really drill into it any further, but sure. He's asking for help probably in a couple of different ways.
Every phone call he made had been recorded. That gave police real access into how he operated,
what was going on in his mind, what he thought, how he talked about himself. It gave him an idea of his personality.
[dial tone] Sucharski didn't deserve to get murdered, but at least he ran in those circles.
These women just went to his house that night. They didn't do anything, and all of a sudden
they're tied up and murdered. I have had to spend 23 years reconciling my rational mind to my heart.
There was so much pain. Hi, my name is Sharon Anderson. You have a wonderful day when you work out in the morning.
You have a lot more energy. SHARON ANDERSON: I was really very close to my sister
because we were only 11 months apart. But we were-- I don't think there was a day that went by that I
did not talk to my sister. So when I got pregnant, I told her before I told my husband.
That's how close we were. (SINGING) Happy birthday, dear Sharon. SHARON ANDERSON: My mom called that Sunday.
I remember I immediately got irritated because I thought, please don't call me in my ninth month of pregnancy
with the story about, you know, Sharon didn't call you. And maybe about 9:00 or 10:00 that night we both agreed just
call the police, right. Something's not right. In the meantime, mom tracked down Marie's mother,
and Marie's mother said I thought that Marie was with Sharon. That's when everything changed.
But the next morning, we go to my husband's store, and I was sitting in the car, and his cell phone rang.
And all he was saying is yes, no, OK, yes, no. One word answers. So he hung up, and I said--
I don't know why, but I said, just tell me. Is she dead? So we went to the hospital.
I had just toured that maternity unit two weeks before that. I didn't think it was going to be like that.
So I knew nothing. I didn't know who was with her. We knew nothing. I later found out that Marie was dead,
and some guy named Butch Casey. Name I never heard. So all I kept thinking, is who would kill her?
Broward County Crime scene technician Bob Surratt, while he was doing his investigation,
he went through all the rooms is when he saw the videotapes and said, I think you need to come see this.
You don't even know it works. That's what I said, play it back. Give me that thing.
Eject that thing. OK. WOMAN: [laughs] Now, I tell you people, whoever's going to watch this, should this man
be institutionalized or what? JOHN HOLLAND: Hundreds of hours of videotapes, and he taped his own house.
He taped the inside of his house. He taped his bedroom. He taped his sex acts with his girlfriend.
In fact, the police noted that in 400 hours of videotape that they examined, it was difficult to find
Sucharski with clothes on. And then they found something that changed the entire case.
PAUL MANZELLA: Bob Surratt, he was observing the, I think it was the south wall book shelving and stuff
and saw a video. Not a video but a VHS recorder, and he followed the line up, and lo and behold, placed up on top about eight feet
next to the ceiling was the camera. ANNOUNCER: This is 7 News at 10:00. Hello again, everybody.
We have a very serious warning for you tonight. The video that we're about to share with you which we've just
received is extremely graphic. They showed me the tape, the whole video, all 27 plus minutes.
Everything about that was completely normal until these guys enter, and then it's just hell.
What kind of person kills three people for no reason in cold blood and walks out like they'd
just turned off a light switch? Watch the video. They made sure they killed everybody in that house.
So I got to watch two men blow a hole through the back of her head, and it was not instant.
She suffered. Well, the most important evidence in the case is the videotape of the murder.
You see what appeared to be a set of lights, vehicle lights flash on a mirrored wall
that he had in the living room. About 20 seconds later, you see the entry of two men, one wearing dark clothing,
one wearing light clothing. They both enter. One has a hat and glasses on. The other one has a t-shirt wrapped around his head.
Sharon Anderson gets up and runs into the bedroom, which was Casey's bedroom Casey's then struck with the firearm
and falls to the ground. Marie Rogers is then pushed off her chair, and she lies still on the floor.
There appears to be a question and answer period going on between Casey and the subject with the firearm,
like he's being interrogated for answers. And every time he gives the wrong answer,
he's hit over the head. And that was done multiple times in the beginning. I had two people on video.
They weren't on video. I was faced with the fact that I had two subjects on a video
that I needed to identify. Those were the perpetrators who committed the crime of murder.
And 38, 20. Ooh, what was that? You have a circular drive. You just had a small patch of grass and stuff inside.
And the back yard is where the BSO deputy had gone and looked inside the back windows, and that's where he saw them laying
down in the living room area. What I can gather from the video, that they came in from the right side
because you see on the video it comes from this way. And I don't know if this gate or anything was the same
or if it's changed or not, but they would have probably have come in through here.
Around the side, and then here's where the sliding glass, sliding glass door would be.
This door I believe at the time was open. And of course they were unaware that there
was cameras in the house. Of course, it wasn't very visible to anyone until we found it only because we
started moving things around. And we thought at this particular time the best thing we'd do is to take a still photograph
off the video, put it on flyers, and distribute them to local law enforcement to see whether or not
these guys had a history. No one knew at that time, even with the stills, where those pictures came from.
And that was the hardest part was putting that name to those images. So we just continued to work the leads that were coming
in from the general public, law enforcement leads that may have had similar instances that had occurred
that suspects in that case. Well basically I saw two guys leave the house early in the morning.
I didn't get a good look at one of them. He kind of turned away from me. But the other guy, I got a good look at him
when he was getting in the car and when we were driving away from him. Mr. Foy came to the police and said, this is what I saw.
I saw two young men in his car leaving his house in the early morning hours, and that
happened to be very consistent with what the video saw. There's no way he could have known that unless he saw it.
One guy, the driver, he tried not to look at me. I didn't get too good a look at him,
but the passenger, he looked hard at me, and I got a good look at him. Yeah, he described the passenger who he saw
much better than the driver. He described him as a male, medium build, short crewcut type hair, shaved
around the sides and the back. And he believed he was wearing a white shirt and had a scruffy face.
I remember Gary Foy telling me that when he turned left onto Pembroke Road to go west, the Mercedes continued
to go north on 64th Avenue. So this may be the same route they took. That's where Gary Foy left them was at 64th and Pembroke Road.
And then he didn't see them after that. [gunshots] We get a telephone call from Detective Sherman
of the Miami-Dade County Homicide division saying that, I think we have our guy.
Gotcha. SHARON ANDERSON (VOICEOVER): From Manzella's standpoint, this was a huge development.
Not only did he have a man who looked a lot like the person in his flyers, he had a crime that looked a lot
like his murders in Miramar. And Pablo Ibar, being an organization that was involved
in doing home invasions, there was a shootout with police on that particular scene.
He had shot and killed the dog. To me, attitude and demeanor wasn't that of a squeaky clean kid.
A lot of the conversation initially was an alibi. Where were you on such and such a date?
Specifically June 26, 1994. Who were you with? What were you doing? I then presented him a photograph
that was taken from the scene. That was an excerpt of the video, a still photograph.
And I presented it to him, and I showed it to him. I says, Pablo, how did I get this?
And I showed him the photograph. And if actions could speak more than words, at that point,
he pushes himself away from the table and just puts his head down. And at that point, he didn't want to talk to me anymore.
Pablo Ibar. You have no funds to pay court costs, do you, sir? No. Is your public defender representing you?
So he's being held on a no bond capital offense. We have asked the court not to disclose it to the public
or have the clerk's office to disclose it to the public because it's still an ongoing investigation.
There may be others involved. There are witnesses perhaps whose names appear in an affidavit whose lives could
be jeopardized as a result of disclosing that affidavit at this time. Since it is a continuing investigation,
I would ask the court not to rule on that. ANNOUNCER: This is 7 News at 10:00. Police insist that this is the gunman,
22-year-old Pablo Manuel Ibar. I always looked up to my brother, very much wanted to be like him.
I just-- I love my brother to death. I always do. When he first was arrested, I couldn't believe it.
I was living with my father in Connecticut playing highlight, and I was down at that time for vacation for two weeks
to visit with my mother and, [spanish].. I was with him every day, every other day.
I couldn't believe then out of the blue, the next one of the days he's arrested.
It was very shocking. You never think at times that that's going to be the last time that you three are
together on a trip like that, that that will never happen again. JOHN HOLLAND: In Manzella's eyes,
he was starting to solve his case. Manzella then had to make his case stronger. The first thing he did was take photos and show it
to the only eyewitness he thought he had, Sucharski's neighbor, Gary Foy. Which numbers did you eliminate?
PAUL MANZELLA: As they were being escorted from the library down the hall into the room,
Gary Foy taps me on the shoulder. That's him, that's him, and pointed Pablo Ibar out.
There's one positive identification of a shoe print. It was a property of Francisco Rincon,
and it was a left shoe of submitted footwear, has the outer sole design consistent with the impression
noted in number one above and could have been the foot board that made the impression.
That had sole prints that were almost identical or very similar to the sole prints that were left
in blood at the crime scene. And those shoe sizes were the same size shoes that Pablo Ibar wears.
The one with the unique basketball player on it. See, here's the hands. Here's the basketball player.
JOHN HOLLAND: He found a t-shirt that was collected into evidence, and it was possibly used
as head cover for Pablo Ibar. The t-shirt was on the front stoop area over by the front
door, and that was something that we've collected because apparently Pablo Ibar had
wrapped his head in a t-shirt when first entering. And then after all the bodies were on the floor
and were shot, Pablo removed that as he was coming out the door here. So but that was left behind, and we did recover that.
The shirt itself had like some kind of an electric company logo on it that it turned out the mother has
either worked for them, was friends with them, familiar with them. But there was a connection between the mother
and that electrical company of the shirt that we found at the front of the door.
So again, it's another piece of the puzzle that would you lean towards Pablo Ibar.
I think it's this house right here, the corner house. Right. That corner house right there, 6391.
All of the people living at the Lee Street address had criminal pasts for drugs, narcotics, weapons violations.
They like to live a life of ladies and late nights and having nice cars or fast cars.
And in South Florida, that means having a weapon. In fact, a brochure of the type of weapon
that was used in this case was found in Mr. Ibar's home where he lived during the course of the murder.
So this was good for Manzella. He had one man, but it didn't answer the question, who was
the other person in the video. So he started interviewing Pablo's friends. They had known each other for a long time,
although they went to different high schools and even were members of different gangs
at one point in their lives. Jean Klimeczko was a kid with a problem. He was addicted to drugs, had been in and out of jail,
and needed a place to stay. Pablo offered his home on Lee Street. JOHN HOLLAND: Seth Penalver was part
of the group of friends that lived in Lea Street along with Rincon and Pablo. Unlike Pablo, Seth did have a criminal history.
He had been arrested in the 1990s on weapons charges. All right, Seth Penalver. Your attorney's here.
He's up at the podium. I'm going to read you the charges and then let him speak.
Count one is murder, first degree. Police insist that this is the gunman in the dark clothes who
struck that blow, 21-year-old Seth Manolo Penalver, and that the second gunman in white is
22-year-old Pablo Manuel Ibar. For Ibar's former roommate, there is no question.
Are you sure right away that that was Pablo on that tape? Yeah. Someone you hang out with, you know what I'm saying,
you see them on tape? Shocking. It was a startling piece of video shown before Judge
Charles Green as part of a preliminary hearing for defendant Seth Penalver, who was
joined in court by the second defendant, Pablo Ibar. Miramar police are convinced they
are the two men who burst into the home with semi-automatic weapons. Eventually, all three victims would be shot to death.
No prosecutor, no one wants to convict someone who is innocent. We can only go by the evidence that's presented to us,
and our conclusions and inferences drawn from that evidence. And nor did I have any other evidence
to lead me in any other direction that would convince me that I had the wrong person.
It was a clause case. Clearly in those cases where people commit very heinous, or atrocious, or cold and very calculated murders,
I do believe, personally feel that the death penalty is appropriate. I told my sister the day she died, I will never let this go.
Not ever. From the day she died to the day I'm sitting in an execution room, I'm never going to let it go.

In Miramar, Florida, in 1994, two women and a man are executed in cold blood. All evidence shows that one of the killers is a young man of Spanish descent named Pablo Ibar. Pablo Ibar was arrested on a charge of triple homicide - but his guilt comes into question when investigators discover video footage of the massacre. The heinous crime becomes the first murder case ever to be caught on camera, and Pablo's story hits the mainstream. This captivating docu-series recounts the harrowing investigation and trials that followed.

Brief Summary

The episode details the brutal murders of three individuals and the investigation leading to the arrests of Pablo Ibar and Seth Penalver.

Key points

Courtroom Tension. The courtroom is tense as the verdicts are about to be read.
Murder Investigation. Three people found brutally murdered in a home, raising questions about motive.
Shocking Video Evidence. Police discover a videotape that changes the entire case.
The Gunman Identified. Police identify Seth Penalver and Pablo Ibar as the gunmen in a shocking murder case.
A Startling Video. A shocking video shown in court reveals crucial evidence against the defendants.
Death Penalty Consideration. The prosecutor discusses the appropriateness of the death penalty in heinous cases.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was an execution.

Description of the murders

5:49WatchFeb 5, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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