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Cancer claims life of a killer and rapist
St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg, Fla.
Mar 5, 2002 - JAMIE JONES
Abstract:
Mendyk's lawyer, Mark
Gruber, said Mendyk was diagnosed with cancer
over the holidays. He
said he believed Mendyk had declined chemotherapy
because his prognosis
was grim. Since January, Mendyk had been unable
to talk and could not
remember simple words.
Mendyk and his wife, Caroline
Mendyk of Winter Park, together made the
medical decisions, Gruber
said. They had met through writing letters and
married while Mendyk
was in prison.
[Ralph Decker], now an
investigator for the Public Defender's Office, said
he built a rapport with
Mendyk, whom he described as a smart man. He
believed Mendyk may have
committed other crimes.
Full Text:
Copyright Times Publishing
Co. Mar 5, 2002
(ran PW, PS editions of Pasco Times)
Todd Mendyk, a Hernando
County man sentenced to death for raping and
strangling a convenience
store clerk in 1987, died in a prison infirmary Saturday
morning from brain cancer.
He was 35.
Mendyk abducted Lee Ann
Larmon from a convenience store off U.S. 19,
dragged her into the
woods, tied her to a sawhorse and raped her. He left her
dangling from a tree,
then later returned and strangled her. Authorities found her
pale body beneath a batch
of palmettos near the Pasco County line.
A death warrant had not
yet been signed for Mendyk, whose case remained under
appeal.
Mendyk's lawyer, Mark
Gruber, said Mendyk was diagnosed with cancer over the
holidays. He said he
believed Mendyk had declined chemotherapy because his
prognosis was grim. Since
January, Mendyk had been unable to talk and could not
remember simple words.
"He very much did not want to die," Gruber said.
Mendyk and his wife, Caroline
Mendyk of Winter Park, together made the medical
decisions, Gruber said.
They had met through writing letters and married while
Mendyk was in prison.
Caroline Mendyk could
not be reached for comment Monday, nor could Larmon's
parents, Hugh and Patricia.
Their daughter was born
in Arizona and worked at the convenience store to help
pay for college. She
wanted to be an accountant. She was in her early 20s when
she was killed.
Mendyk's crime was one
of the more harrowing in recent Hernando County
history. After Lee Ann
Larmon's death, the Brooksville City Council passed an
ordinance requiring that
two clerks must work the late shift at convenience stores.
Mendyk and his friend,
Phillip Frantz, drank beer, smoked marijuana and talked
about music before heading
out to look for women. They went to a friend's house
and then went to pick
up something to eat in the convenience store where Larmon
worked.
For weeks, the two had
talked about creating an underground colony where men
would dominate women,
Frantz testified at trial. He said Mendyk had shown him a
Satanic bible and talked
about a book of spells.
In the convenience store,
Larmon sat behind the counter with an Avon cosmetics
catalog. She walked out
to help the men and Mendyk grabbed her by the neck. He
dragged her to their
truck and tied her hands with wire.
Larmon asked whether they
planned to kill her. "No, just be a good girl," Mendyk
told her.
Frantz said they took
her into the woods, where Mendyk tied her to a sawhorse,
sexually assaulted and
tortured her.
They hung her by the wrists
from a scrub oak tree and left. But their truck got stuck
in the mud. Mendyk went
back and strangled Larmon before hiding her body, later
spotted by a sheriff's
helicopter.
Authorities started looking
for Larmon after a deputy stopped by the store and
found no one inside.
Ralph Decker was the lead
detective on the case for the Hernando County Sheriff's
Office. He conducted
the initial interview with Mendyk and has remained in touch
with him over the years,
exchanging letters every month or so.
Decker, now an investigator
for the Public Defender's Office, said he built a
rapport with Mendyk,
whom he described as a smart man. He believed Mendyk
may have committed other
crimes.
"He caused a lot of pain
to a lot of people," Decker said Monday. "I think he
eventually understood
that. He had some pretty awful views."
- Jamie Jones covers law
enforcement and courts in Hernando County
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