Inset: Domenico Gigante (Brevard County Sheriff's Office). Background: The home where Gigante massacred his daughter and three others (Google Maps)
A 40-year-old Florida man admitted to killing four people, including his teenage daughter, after becoming enraged over their strained relationship and breaking into the home where she lived with her mother and their new family.
Domenico C. Gigante acted as his own attorney when he pleaded guilty Thursday to four counts of first-degree premeditated murder, all capital felonies, and one count of armed burglary of a dwelling with a firearm inflicting death, authorities announced.
According to a news release from the 18th Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office, prosecutors will continue seeking the death penalty against Gigante. Because he waived his right to a jury trial, Circuit Judge Laura Moody will ultimately decide whether the convicted killer should be put to death.
In addition to his daughter, Kiarra Terwilliger, Gigante also killed the child's mother, 35-year-old Constance Terwilliger; the child's maternal grandmother, 63-year-old Glenda Terwilliger; and Constance Terwilliger's boyfriend, 36-year-old Michael Watson.
"My end goal today is to take full accountability," Gigante, a former emergency medical technician, said during the plea hearing. "I know what I did was evil and wrong. I'm here to get on my knees … and for justice to be served for those affected by what I've done."
Authorities said Gigante had been growing increasingly "angered by a strained relationship with his daughter and her refusal to have a relationship with him." On the night before the killings, he told his roommate that he was fed up with his daughter and "her family," declaring, "I guess I'm going to go over them and kill them all."
At 12:57 a.m. on March 1, 2023, surveillance footage showed Gigante leaving his Rockledge home in his Dodge pickup with a black object that appeared to be a firearm.
About 20 minutes later, a surveillance camera at a neighboring residence captured a vehicle matching Gigante's truck entering the driveway of the home on Alan Shepard Avenue. At approximately 1:21 a.m., the recording captured several gunshots and a woman screaming. About two minutes later, the camera captured the truck's lights leaving the driveway.
Inside the home, deputies found a man and woman dead on the living room floor surrounded by a "large pool of blood." Nearby, authorities recovered a shell casing and discovered bloody footprints. Deputies found the body of an older woman in another bedroom with a gunshot wound to the head, while the teen lay dead in a second bedroom.
Two children, ages 6 and 9, survived the massacre and called a relative for help after Gigante fled.
Investigators soon identified Gigante as a suspect. When his roommate learned that Gigante's daughter had been killed, he immediately asked Gigante, "Did you do this?"
Gigante said that "he had" and told the roommate that "he shot [his daughter] three times," according to the affidavit. The roommate also noted that Gigante had previously vented about "his frustrations regarding his situation" with his daughter.
Investigators located Gigante in Spanish Fort, Alabama, inside Constance Terwilliger's vehicle and took him into custody. Inside the vehicle, they recovered a Taurus handgun that investigators later confirmed as the weapon used in the killings.
In announcing its intent to seek the death penalty, the State Attorney's Office cited the four murders, the killing of Gigante's daughter while she was under his familial authority, the allegation that the killings were committed in a "cold, calculated and premeditated manner," and the fact that the murders occurred while Gigante was committing armed burglary.
Gigante, who was initially represented by a public defender, chose in July to represent himself. He later waived his right to a jury trial and a jury penalty proceeding before pleading guilty Thursday.
"The state doesn't need to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. I'm guilty, and I meet the aggravating factors. I have no interest in appealing," Gigante told Circuit Judge Laura Moody.
Moody is expected to determine whether Gigante will be sentenced to death at a hearing scheduled for late October or early November.