Donna Horwitz

We all know that the people closest to a victim are the first people that are looked at for their murder. Oftentimes the investigators know that it has to be one or more of them but it takes time to prove the case. Sometimes that comes down to who can be believed more or who tells a story that matches more with the evidence. Of course it is the job of a defense attorney to case doubt as to their clients guilt and it is not unusual to see them accuse someone else of the crime. That becomes more complicated when it involves a parent and a child, no matter how old the child is.

In general everyone here could probably put themselves in a situation in which they could be a suspect in a murder. We do not make sure that every minute of every day can be accounted for and that we can have proof to what we were doing. Sure cell phone data, surveillance camera and even applications on your phone can often prove, or disprove for that matter, a store. My grown son lives with my husband and I. He was at work this morning and I left the house for a few hours while my husband was still in bed. If I would have returned home and found his body I would be the first suspect. However, cell phone data and other things could easily eliminate me as the perpetrator. My son's work schedule, and the fact that he works quite a distance from home would also eliminate him quickly. But, what if he had not worked today and I had slept in while my husband got up before either of us? He and I sleep with a humidifier in the room to block out noise and the door closed, especially when one of us gets up. My son sleeps with a loud fan and both he and I sleep fairly deeply. We have dog that surely would have barked and alerted us if someone would have come into the home, but what if the dog was with me, or better yet we did not have one? Cell phone data would not clear my son or I and we would be left to prove that one or even both of us were innocently sleeping. That would make things more difficult. If investigators thought evidence pointed to one of us as being a murderer and brought charges it would be easy for a defense attorney to cast a shadow on that claim and point the finger at the other person. This is just such a case.

On the morning of September 30, 2011 sixty-six year old attorney, Lanny Horwitz was shot in his Jupiter Florida home. He shared the home with his ex-wife, Donna and their thirty-eight year old son, Radley. The shooting was reported in an odd way. The family lived in an upscale community that employed their own security guards. The house alarm had been activated and it was the responding security guard that contacted the police department. Lanny Horwitz would be found naked, in a pool of blood in his own bathroom. He had been shot nine times. A gun was found next to his body. Amazingly considering all of the gunshot wounds he suffered Donna would allegedly claim to the security guard that Lanny had committed suicide.

Radley would tell officers that he slept in his room with ear plugs and that he had been awakened by gunfire and then his mother screaming. He would claim that his mother also apparently attempted to tell him that his father had committed suicide and she had found him in the bathroom. Once the police arrived however she refused to speak to them without a lawyer present, which in fairness, was her absolute right.

Donna would be arrested and charged with first degree murder. At her trial in 2013 prosecutors would argue that Donna was in the process of moving out of the home, once more. This had occurred prior as Lanny and Donna had been married and divorced, not once, but twice. At the time of his murder Lanny was expected to leave on a trip. He had stated that it was a business trip, and maybe it was, but his female business partner was going with him and there were allegations of an affair between the two. So, while it was alleged to be a business trip, it seems that there was likely to be some pleasure time also. Prosecutors would say that Donna emptied the chambers of two revolvers into Lanny's body. During the investigation a journal belonging to Donna had been found. Inside she had made references to the alleged affair and also spoke of how Lanny had been “mean” to her. Her son would admit that his father was psychologically abusive to both he and his mother. But, the defense would take it further.

The defense would claim that it was Radley, not Donna who had committed the murder. They pointed out that Radley was considered to be a firearms expert and had a very rocky relationship with his father. “Years earlier” Radley had spent five months in jail for selling a gun to a felon. To be fair, there seemed to be few details surrounding this other than the fact that Radley was a licensed gun dealer and had the right to sell them, just obviously not to a felon. His conviction could have been a situation where he had simply not followed the rules to ensure the person he had sold the gun to was legally able to have one. But, that did not matter to the defense, they just needed a scapegoat. They argued that Radley simply wanted his father's life insurance that amounted to $500,000.

The prosecution would counter this by saying that Radley had tested negative for GSR on his hands. I assume that this was an indication that Donna had no passed such a test, but I must admit that I do not know for a fact that was true. There had been some DNA found inside the bathroom mixed with Lanny's. The official results had been inconclusive but it was said to have eliminated both Radley and the security guard, but had not officially ruled out Donna.

The jury took about two hours before they rendered a verdict of guilty against Donna. It is not clear what she was sentenced to. However, that conviction was overturned by the courts because the prosecution had told the jury that Donna had refused to speak to the Jupiter police. The courts found this was a violation of Donna's rights considering she had “the right to remain silent” and just as if she had refused to testify in her own defense in a trial (although to be fair I am uncertain if she did or did not testify), it was not be used against her. And yet, either the judge had not informed the jury of this or it was said and done in a way in which the jury was seemingly left with the impression it could be used.

Donna would go back on trial in June of 2017. Again, her only child, Radley Horwitz would testify for the prosecution and tell his story. And again, the defense would point the finger at Radley. Radley would later say that because of the abuse his mother had suffered from at the “hands” of his father he had been okay with defense attempting to blame him during the first trial. However, by the second trial not only had his relationship with his mother completely deteriorated, he now resented that once again he was being made a scapegoat. He has stated that he broke all ties with his mother in 2015 when she had ridiculed him for seeking therapy.

It is not clear whether the prosecution had continued to seek first degree murder against Donna or if they had lowered the charge to second degree. It is also possible that the jury had simply been given the right to find her guilty of a lesser charge and that is what they did when they rendered a verdict of guilty of second degree murder. In October of 2017 the seventy-one year old Donna Horwitz was given a sentence of thirty-two years. According to the Florida Department of Corrections her release date is not scheduled until the year 2043. There seems to be only a slim chance that she will live to be released at the age of ninety-seven.