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The State of Florida executed John Richard Marek today at 6:33 p.m. ET by lethal injection. Marek was 47 years old and had spent 26 years in prison for the rape, torture, and strangulation death of Adela Marie Simmons.
Traveling with her friend on June 16, 1983, Adela Simmons and Jean Trach had been on vacationing in Clearwater, Florida and were on their way home to Miami. The car they were driving began to have difficulty and the car stalled at approximately 11:00 p.m.. It was then that two men in a pickup truck offered them help. They offered to take one of the women to a tollbooth, where she would be allowed to call for help. Jean Trach warned Adela not to take the ride, but she took it anyway. “I told them I absolutely wasn't going with them. But Adela the whole time was saying we couldn't just stay out there. She told me: 'You have to trust someone sometime.' States a report from the Palm Beach Post. Adela never realized that ride would end her life. Her dead body was found nude the next day.
The two men, John Richard Marek and Raymond Wigley, had been spotted by a police officer and stopped as they left a lifeguard stand in Dania Beach, at 3:30 in the morning. Four hours later, the body of Adela Simmons was discovered deceased inside that stand. The truck the men were driving had been stolen. Later that evening, Wigley was apprehended while driving the truck. Marek was captured later at Daytona Shores. Jewelry belonging to Adela Simmons was discovered inside the stolen vehicle. Though there was a gun in the vehicle, it was determined that Simmons was strangled to death.
Marek maintained his claim that it was Wigley who killed Simmons for the past 26 years. Though an attorney for John Marek had found inmates who claimed that Wigley had told them he was the murderer, John Marek’s appeals were denied. Raymond Wigley died in prison while serving a life sentence in 2000; he was murdered.
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