double child killer, Howard Steven Ault,
A double child killer, Howard Steven Ault, is facing execution for the infamous 1996 murders of two young black sisters. Mail Online reports that Ault, aged 57, received his initial death sentence in 2000.
However, numerous legal challenges and alterations to Florida’s death row procedures led to two subsequent jury deliberations.
This week, a 9-3 majority vote sealed his fate for execution.
Three decades ago, Howard enticed 11-year-old DeAnn Emerald Mu’min and her younger sister, 7-year-old Alicia Sybilla Jones, to his residence under the guise of offering Halloween candy.
After deliberating for two days, jurors voted 9-3 to reaffirm Ault’s death sentence, marking a decision influenced by the non-unanimous ruling, made possible by a new law enacted by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
This legislation, signed into law in April, permits the death penalty in the state to be endorsed by a jury vote as minimal as 8-4.
Despite his arrest shortly after the murders, Ault has been in and out of death row multiple times, despite the gravity of his crimes.
Three years following his initial conviction in 2000, the Florida Supreme Court mandated a retrial for Ault due to concerns regarding jury selection in his trial.
In 2007, he was resentenced to death for the murders of the young girls in a 9-3 vote, subsequently residing on death row for over a decade until another ruling by the Florida Supreme Court in 2017.
This decision deemed Florida’s death penalty process unconstitutional as it did not necessitate jurors to reach a unanimous verdict.
As Ault awaited another sentencing hearing, the case became entangled with the aftermath of the 2018 Parkland school shooting, wherein the perpetrator, despite killing 17 people, was spared the death penalty as the jury voted only 12-9 for death.
Amid public outrage over the jury’s decision, DeSantis advocated for lowering the threshold, culminating in Ault’s third death sentence this week.
According to a New York Times article published after his arrest in 1996, Ault was identified as a longstanding sex offender in Florida, placed under house arrest for an unrelated sex crime involving another child at the time of the sisters’ murders.
He promptly confessed to the killings, leading investigators to their bodies in the attic of his building. Ault’s arrest ignited public outcry, with many questioning how a convicted child predator could have contact with the young girls, particularly given his extensive criminal record at the time, dating back to 1986 when he faced charges related to a violent beach attack.
Despite being sentenced to seven years in prison, he served only three years and nine months due to overcrowding.
Subsequently, in 1994, he pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and sexual activity with a six-year-old child, resulting in house arrest. Additionally, in 1995, he was accused of attempting to rape an 11-year-old neighbor on New Year’s Eve, although he was never arrested for the alleged crime.
At the funeral for the sisters he murdered, there was a palpable sense of anger over the systemic failures that allowed him to reoffend.
While a jury has voted to sentence him to death for the third time, he will still be subject to formal sentencing by a judge.
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