Life for double murderer
BROOKSVILLE –
Prosecutor Richard Buxman summed up the case in a few minutes, but he only spoke for a few seconds before Roxanne Nelson broke down and cried.
Listening to the details of her daughter’s bludgeoning was too much for her.
Her family whisked Nelson out of the courtroom and Buxman continued.
He detailed the way Craig Aaron Lede fatally beat his two victims with an aluminum baseball bat, stuffed one body in the trunk of a car, wrapped the other in blankets and tried to clean the mess in his living room with bleach.
When a Hernando County Sheriff’s deputy knocked on his door Dec. 2, 2011 — two days after Lede had murdered John Ketsemidis and Dana Nelson — his jeans were stained with blood, Buxman said.
After Lede had killed his victims, he took photos of them with a digital camera. Detectives found the images during a search of Lede’s home.
During his interview, Lede was asked about the gruesome photos.
“He took them as trophies,” Buxman said, recalling Lede’s candid answer.
Ketsemidis’ mother, Magdalena, remained seated in the courtroom and wept. Her neighbor, Alisha Boyton, who sat to her left, blurted some obscenities toward the defendant.
“You sick (expletive)!” Boyton yelled.
The lead detective in the case, John Ellis, moved one aisle over and sat down next to Boyton. She simmered quietly for the remainder of the sentencing hearing.
In a decision that angered some of the victims’ relatives, the State Attorney’s Office agreed to allow Lede to plead guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in exchange for two consecutive life sentences.
Lede, who stole Ketsemidis’ BMW sedan and parked it in his garage, pleaded guilty to an additional count of grand theft auto. He received a five-year prison sentence for that charge.
Both Magdalena Ketsemidis and Roxanne Nelson said Wednesday they would have preferred the death penalty for Lede.
“I could just spit in his face,” Ketsemidis said of her son’s killer after the hearing. “He showed no remorse.”
Lede remained stoic Wednesday afternoon. He answered the judge’s questions with “yes” or “no” answers and didn’t apologize or speak on his own behalf.
Lede knew John Ketsemidis, 29, and Dana Nelson, 28, through their drug connections. Based on court records, all three acquired prescription pills from the same pain management clinic along Mariner Boulevard.
Lede told detectives he killed Ketsemidis and Nelson over a drug debt.
Roxanne Nelson handwrote a prepared statement for Wednesday’s hearing. She was too emotional to read it herself. She stood 10 feet from the judge’s bench alongside her sister, Debbie Irvin, who was asked to read it for her.
Nelson’s letter described her daughter’s “heart of gold.”
Dana Nelson once encountered a homeless person begging for money. Instead of handing over a few bills, she took the homeless person to a restaurant and paid for his meal, Irvin said.
In the letter, Nelson’s mother made several references to Lede’s life sentence. She said Lede has made her serve her own life sentence, during which she is forced “to grieve and mourn” constantly.
She then mentioned her 6-year-old granddaughter, who in turn will “get life without a mother.”
Roxanne Nelson said she was brought up never to hate or wish death upon someone, but her emotions have overpowered her.
“I have more hate for you than I could ever have for anyone,” Irvin read from Nelson’s letter.
Jimmy Roman, Lede’s friend, was one of the last people to see Lede before he was arrested for the murders. He said the defendant had long been slipping further into a state of paranoia and depression as a result of his drug addiction.
“I remember he was not smelling good,” Roman said, recalling the day Lede showed up at his house. “He was acting kind of crazy, too.”
Roman eventually told Lede he needed to take a shower.
“What, are you saying that I smell?” Lede asked defensively.
“I told him, ‘Yeah, you smell,'” Roman said. “After that he got really quiet.
“He was really acting different. I would be talking and you could tell he wasn’t with the conversation. Mentally, he just didn’t look stable.”
The deputy who found the bodies and arrested Lede said the suspect seemed agitated. When the deputy entered the unkempt house, he immediately noticed the foul odor.
John Ketsemidis’ body was discovered lying on the garage floor. Dana Nelson’s body was found in the trunk. Their hands were bound and electric tape covered Nelson’s mouth, said Buxman.
The sheriff’s office was called after Lede drove to Ketsemidis’ parents’ home the morning of Dec. 2, 2011. He showed up driving their son’s car.
Lede asked the couple for $40. He told them the money was for their son, who needed to pay for some medical expenses. The couple refused to give him money and Lede left. They called local hospitals before contacting the authorities.
“You know the man has to be sick to do something like that,” Roman said of Lede.
