Palm Beach Post
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Launching what they claim could be William Van Poyck’s last chance for a reprieve, his attorneys Monday appealed to the Florida Supreme Court to stay his June 12 execution for the 1987 murder of Glades Correctional Institution guard Fred Griffis outside a West Palm Beach doctor’s office.
In two separate appeals, attorneys asked the high court to consider Van Poyck’s wretched childhood.
Before sentencing him to death, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Michael Miller said the actions of the son of an Eastern Airlines executive were particularly inexplicable given that he was “raised in a good family and by people that cared for him.”
Nothing, the attorneys argued, could be further from the truth.
His family spiraled out of control when his mother died in a carbon monoxide accident when he was a toddler. He was raised by abusive family friends and then a stepmother, who was described as having a “maniacal hostility” toward Van Poyck and his two siblings.
At age 12, he was sent to a youth hall, where he was raped, and then to the Florida Boys School in Okeechobee, which was closed after investigators documented horrific abuse of youth sent there for rehabilitation.
The truth about Van Poyck’s childhood coupled with information that he wasn’t the triggerman could have persuaded jurors -- and Miller -- to vote for a life sentence instead of death.
Before he was beaten to death by prison guards in 1999, Van Poyck’s accomplice told his wife that he shot Griffis in a botched attempt to spring a convicted murderer who was being brought to a dermatologist for treatment, says an affidavit signed by Lake Worth resident Wanda Valdes, the widow of Frank Valdes.
Prosecutors today are expected to counter that such issues aren’t new -- that they have been rejected numerous times in other appeals.
The high court could hear oral arguments Thursday.
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