Domenico Gigante dismissed his public defender, represented himself and waived jury proceedings before pleading guilty to killing four people.
VIERA, Fla. — A death-penalty case that once appeared headed for a jury trial is now in the hands of a single Florida judge after Domenico C. Gigante dismissed his public defender, chose to represent himself, admitted four murders and waived jury involvement in determining his sentence.
Gigante’s unusual series of courtroom decisions has transformed the final stage of a prosecution arising from the March 1, 2023, killings of his 15-year-old daughter and three other people in Brevard County. He pleaded guilty Aug. 27 to four counts of first-degree premeditated murder and one count of armed burglary. Prosecutors continue to seek the death penalty, but because Gigante surrendered both a jury trial and a jury penalty proceeding, Circuit Judge Laura Moody will determine the punishment. No final sentence had been announced as of Oct. 17.
The path to that judge-only decision developed during the summer of 2026. Gigante had been represented by a public defender while the case moved through court for more than three years. In July, he chose to end that representation and act as his own attorney. By the following month, rather than using that role to challenge the prosecution at trial, he abandoned his not-guilty plea. At the Aug. 27 hearing, Gigante told Moody he wanted to accept responsibility and acknowledged that prosecutors no longer needed to prove the murder charges to a jury.
The admissions resolved what would otherwise have been the central question at trial: whether Gigante was criminally responsible for the deaths of Kiarra Terwilliger, 15; Kiarra’s mother, Constance Terwilliger, 35; Glenda Terwilliger, 63; and Michael Watson, 36. All four were killed at a house on Alan Shepard Avenue in the Canaveral Groves area. Two younger children were inside the home during the shooting and survived. One contacted a relative for help, leading to an emergency call and the discovery of the victims before 2 a.m.
Before Gigante pleaded guilty, the prosecution had spent years positioned to present a detailed circumstantial and testimonial case. Investigators said surveillance footage showed Gigante leaving his Rockledge residence shortly before 1 a.m. March 1, 2023, carrying an object that appeared to be a firearm. Cameras near the victims’ home later recorded a vehicle matching his pickup entering the driveway. Audio from a neighboring system captured gunshots and a woman screaming, followed by footage of vehicle lights leaving the property. Cameras at Gigante’s residence then recorded his return.
A statement from Gigante’s roommate offered investigators additional evidence about what preceded those movements. According to an arrest affidavit, Gigante had been frustrated by a strained relationship with Kiarra and by her refusal to have a relationship with him. The roommate said Gigante made a threat against his daughter and her family shortly before the killings. Later, after investigators informed Gigante and the roommate that Kiarra had died, the roommate said he confronted Gigante and asked whether he had been responsible. The affidavit said Gigante admitted shooting his daughter.
Those investigative findings led to Gigante’s arrest the same day as the killings. A Brevard County grand jury later indicted him on four counts of first-degree premeditated murder with a firearm and an armed burglary count. At that point, the case entered the normal pretrial process for a defendant facing the possibility of capital punishment. Prosecutors filed notice that they intended to seek death, while Gigante remained in custody and initially contested the case.
The State Attorney’s Office has pointed to several aggravating circumstances in support of its capital request. Prosecutors have emphasized that four people were killed, that Kiarra was Gigante’s daughter, that the killings occurred during an armed burglary and that the state views the murders as calculated and premeditated. Those assertions originally would have been part of the prosecution’s effort to obtain the most serious available sentence after a conviction. Gigante’s guilty pleas eliminated the need to first obtain those murder convictions at trial.
His waiver of a jury for the penalty stage was separate and equally consequential. In a conventional capital case, jury participation can be a major part of deciding punishment. Gigante instead agreed that Moody could make the sentencing determination. The State Attorney’s Office said after the plea hearing that the judge would decide his sentence at a proceeding expected in late October or early November. Local reporting from court has described death or life imprisonment as the outcomes remaining for the murder convictions.
Gigante made clear at the plea hearing that he understood the prosecution had not abandoned its capital request. Local reporters quoted him as saying he would accept either life terms or a death sentence. He also characterized the crime as “cold, calculated and cruel” while telling the court that the state no longer had to establish his guilt. His statements did not themselves decide punishment; that question remains before Moody under the jury waiver he entered.
The procedural shift means the public may never see the type of guilt-phase trial that had been anticipated when Gigante was first indicted. Jurors will not be asked to watch the surveillance timeline unfold, evaluate the roommate’s account or determine whether the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Gigante committed the four murders. His pleas supplied the convictions instead. The coming proceeding will therefore begin from a fundamentally different point: responsibility is settled, while punishment is not.
The case’s legal transformation also separates the events of 2023 from the decision now confronting the court. In the immediate aftermath of the killings, deputies were responding to a child’s plea for help and trying to identify who had attacked the household. Within hours, Gigante was in custody. Within weeks, he had been indicted and was facing a possible death sentence. For the next three years, the prosecution prepared for a contested case. Then Gigante’s choices in July and August 2026 compressed the remaining dispute into the single question of sentence.
That question carries particular weight because prosecutors have never withdrawn their request for death. Gigante’s admissions may have removed uncertainty over the verdict, but they did not produce a negotiated resolution in which the capital issue disappeared. Instead, the State Attorney’s Office publicly reaffirmed after the plea that it would continue pursuing the death sentence and rely on the circumstances it had previously identified as aggravating.
Moody’s eventual ruling will complete the trial-court phase of a case that has moved through arrest, indictment, years of pretrial proceedings, self-representation and guilty pleas without a jury deciding either guilt or punishment. As of Oct. 17, reliable public reporting reviewed for this article did not show that a final sentence had been imposed. The next major development is therefore expected to come from the judge who now holds sole responsibility for deciding Gigante’s punishment.
Author note: Last updated October 17, 2026.