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Muscles, Murder, and a Messiah, Part 2

Continued from page 3

Some of Contini's colleagues wonder if that unique relationship is driven more by guilt than faith. Fernandez is now serving three consecutive life sentences despite Contini's claims to reporters 15 years ago that Fernandez "is going to walk."

"John's relationship with Gil is definitely unusual," says Fernandez's former prosecutor, Jim Lewis, who is now a criminal defense attorney in Broward. "Generally, after defending a client, the relationship goes 100 percent the other way. The guys I end up with on death row or with life sentences, they don't call or write too much. I get Christmas cards from time to time, but I can tell you that they're not very happy Christmas cards.

"I thought John did a good job in the trial," Lewis continues. "He did everything he could do. If he has guilt, I don't know why he should. We represent our clients as best we can, but we're not responsible for what our clients do."

When Lewis prosecuted the case, he believed that Fernandez's religious conversion was an act. Today, he's not sure. But he has no doubts about Fernandez's guilt.

"The thing I'm reminded of most about the trial is when Contini got up and started referring to the Bible, talking about sins being washed away in a watery grave," Lewis says. "When I heard those words, I couldn't believe it. The watery grave I remembered in this case was the one that the three victims had been found in. They were executed one by one, and their bodies were left in the water."

Lewis takes a pause. He's still passionate about the case.

"I'm a Christian person, and I believe in redemption," he says. "I also believe there are some crimes so heinous that they deserve the ultimate punishment. I believe Gil Fernandez deserves that punishment."

Another of Fernandez's prosecutors, Cynthia Imperato, believes that if Fernandez prays, it's for freedom, not inner peace. Now a Broward Circuit Court judge appointed to the bench by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2003, Imperato built relationships with the three victims' families that continue to this day.

Did Fernandez kill three men in the Everglades on April 1, 1983? "There's no doubt in my mind," Imperato says.

Imperato is discussing the case over lunch on Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. It's mid-December, and Imperato remembers certain details about the case as if it were yesterday. That has a lot to do with a recent conversation she had with Contini. Fernandez's former attorney had invited Imperato to discuss the case with him. Contini talked about the relationship he has had with Fernandez and how he's writing a book about the murderer's conversion to Christianity.

"I'm not 'born again,'" Imperato says, creating quotation marks in the air with her fingers, "so I don't understand John's relationship with Fernandez. He killed three people. It was brutal. How do you see beyond that?"

And there's potentially much more to Fernandez's life in crime.

While investigating the 1983 murders in the Everglades, BSO and the Miami-Dade Police Department formed a task force to investigate Fernandez. Police and prosecutors believe that, in addition to the three murders in the Everglades, Fernandez could be responsible for six other killings over a two-year period. All of the victims had connections to Christie's and Fernandez's Apollo Gym, and investigators suspect Fernandez was feeling increasing pressure from law enforcement. He started killing off people who could have potentially testified against him, they theorize.

"What's the first rule of murder?" Diaz asks rhetorically. "Don't leave any witnesses behind."

Fernandez's purported killing spree began on October 6, 1985, when Tommy Felts, the 36-year-old fellow bodybuilder who allegedly helped Fernandez and Carbone kill the three men in the Everglades, was gunned down while driving on Interstate 95. Felts had told family members that he wanted out of organized crime, according to police reports.

Soon after the murder, Fernandez arrived at Felts' house. He demanded from Felts' wife a stash of cocaine as well as "a little black book." The book contained a list of debts owed to the criminal organization. In mid-October of 1985, Fernandez knocked on the door of Nealon Frisch's Hollywood apartment. Records indicate that Frisch dealt cocaine in the late '80s and, according to a BSO report, owed Felts $500. The debt was likely recorded in that black book.

Fernandez wanted to collect the $500. Frisch objected, saying he owed the money to Felts, not him.

"I'm Tommy," Fernandez said, then gave Frisch one week to pay up.

Fernandez returned, and when Frisch could come up with only $150, he beat the man severely, according to the BSO report. "You [are] a fucking lucky person," Fernandez told Frisch. "Do you want to end up the way Tommy did?"

One year after Felts' murder, on October 21, 1986, Miramar police found William Halpern, 28, dead in his townhouse. He'd been strangled, his hands bound, throat slashed. Halpern was a Hallandale Beach firefighter-paramedic until 1981, when he hurt his back. He then began to sell coins and artwork and also worked out at the Apollo Gym. Police investigating his murder did not find signs of forced entry, and a gun that Halpern kept behind the front door was unmoved. He likely knew his killer, police say.

The murders continued. On May 6, 1987, BSO detectives found Charles Mitch Hall, 27, and his 23-year-old girlfriend, Charlinda Draudt, in Hall's Tamarac home. As in Halpern's death, the couple's hands were bound and their throats were cut. Hall, who often socialized with Halpern on Hollywood's muscle-bound Garfield Beach, worked out at the Apollo Gym and knew Fernandez. Draudt, a bartender at a local restaurant, was likely a victim of circumstance. There was no sign of forced entry.

On May 14, 1987, eight days after the double murder in Tamarac, James Hinote Jr., 31, and Harry Van Collier, 28, were found shot to death in Collier's Coconut Creek townhouse. Again, there was no sign of forced entry. Hinote was friends with Halpern and Hall and knew Fernandez from the Apollo Gym. Collier was a bodybuilder friend visiting from New York.

Police investigating the murders believed that Halpern, Hall, and Hinote were small-time drug dealers whose connections to Fernandez and Christie came from the Apollo Gym. It's unclear whether these men had knowledge of the 1983 Everglades murders.

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