Russ Davies was on deck for a helicopter ride.
One man in a jumpsuit already had an assigned seat. Davies was waiting to see whether he’d fill the second one.
Twelve jurors in a Daytona Beach courtroom were deliberating on whether to air taxi him 100 miles to death row in Raiford.
The helicopter left the tarmac without him that day in March 1988.
Jurors spared Davies the electric chair. The inmate who had just been sentenced to death by a judge in a different case was the solo passenger. That was the speed with which Florida's court system worked 30 years ago when sending its condemned killers to death row.
Davies' entire trial, including jury selection, lasted three days — a fraction of the time a murder case now takes to be tried.
Davies, 19 years old at the time, stood zombie-like after the guilty verdict was read, while his mother was carried out of the courtroom bawling. Both of Davies' parents, here from their home Canada, were sickened by the thought of a helicopter waiting to fly their son to the home of Florida's death chamber.
Davies, who The Daytona Beach News-Journal interviewed this month at Hardee Correctional Institution, is still coping with the torment, guilt and resentment that had consumed him on that day.
Davies was one of six defendants in the June 1986 killing of a man at Bulow Creek State Park. He has spent more than 60 percent of his life institutionalized and is serving a life sentence. The other five served sentences ranging from probation to two years in prison.
Witnesses said Davies didn't fire the fatal shot.
Davies is 49 years old. He’s no longer that brash, delinquent youth. He’s evolved into a mild-mannered, introspective man.
He is seeking a transfer to a Canadian prison so he can be closer to his parents, who are now in their mid-70s and are physically unable to travel to Florida to visit their son. Advocates are assisting him. The Canadian government has announced it is ready to take him.
Gov. Rick Scott has not signed off on the transfer, saying only that Davies’ request is under review and the process is ongoing.
Joining 'The Family'
Davies was once a delinquent teen living in Richmond Hill, Ontario. He stole his boss’ car in May 1986 and drove to the U.S. border. He hooked up with a friend who rented a car with a stolen credit card. That card belonged to Davies' mother. The pair drove 1,500 miles to Daytona Beach.
The plan for Davies and his friend was to go wherever there was sand, water and warmth. After they picked up a hitchhiker outside Atlanta whose destination was Daytona Beach, they decided to head there.
“That’s where most (drifters) went and crashed and hung out and figured what they were going to do,” Davies said of his impression of those he encountered in Daytona Beach.
Davies’ friend met a girl, so Davies went on his own. He traveled the state for a little while until he returned to Daytona Beach a week or two before the killing and met up with some ne’er-do-wells who comprised a misfit gang. They called themselves "The Family."
They committed burglaries. They smoked pot. They drank beer. They committed more burglaries to obtain more cigarettes and beer.
“Being somebody, being recognized as a tough guy,” is how Davies described his motivation to join The Family.
There was one Family member Davies clashed with. He never got along with Jack Chaney.
Time for something different
William Russell Davies, Florida inmate 111211, told his story in a cafeteria enclosed by the cinder block walls of Hardee Correctional, about three hours from the the 32-year-old murder scene.
His arms are covered in tattoos. He said his entire torso is covered in ink. He regrets that, too.
Davies had a blissful childhood. He loved the rural life.
He did well in school. He attended church. He had two older brothers and one younger. He had role models. His mother, Carol, doted on him. His father, Richard, worked a lot of hours as a music teacher.
Richard and Carol Davies eventually moved their family to the suburbs of Toronto, which didn't delight their third-oldest son, who was around 12 at the time. By the time Russ Davies was a teen, he underwent a transformation.
He was in a perpetual state of rebellion. He rejected conformity and reform school didn't work.
He wanted a different life, refusing to savor the advantage of having two loving parents.
“I think it was just pressure from everywhere and not knowing how to deal with the pressure," he said.
Davies dropped out of school at 15.
At 16, Davies was emancipated from his parents, although he still lived at home. He paid them room and board.
“There was no relationship whatsoever,” Davies said. “I think they just threw up their hands with frustration.”
He worked a midnight shift at a bakery. It was a life unfulfilled and he felt it was time for something different.
So he stole his boss’ car and headed south.
Deadly rift in The Family
Jack Chaney was already drunk and grating on Davies' nerves. He was driving a Mercury Cougar and Davies was his passenger. Most of the rest of The Family were riding in a Cadillac de Ville.
Davies recalls it was either June 5 or 6, less than four weeks after he turned 18.
While in a parking lot at a fast food restaurant, the 28-year-old Chaney drove the Mercury onto a curb and crashed the front bumper against some bricks.
“I’m like, ‘I’m not riding with this dude, no more,’ ” Davies said, recalling how much that day was going sideways on him.
He wanted to join his other friends, who were all riding in the Cadillac, but they wouldn’t let him ride with them. He was stuck with Chaney, who by that time had made everyone mad.
Davies and Chaney were joined by Carrie Parker, who everyone called “Mom;” James “Jimbo” Noojin; George Hughes; Timothy “Big Tim” Hagen; and John “John-John” Cavallaro. That was the core of The Family.
The group wanted to sit around and drink more beer, so they headed north of Daytona Beach.
Davies and Cavallaro argued back and forth with Chaney during the drive. Hughes, Parker, Noojin and Hagen were riding in the Cadillac in front of them.
Parker led the group to a remote area on the northern edge of east Volusia County, near Bulow Creek State Park underneath some power lines.
Cavallaro and Hughes broke a locked chain and drove through a gate into an open field. At one point, Davies was on the hood of the Mercury and Chaney started driving the car in reverse, endangering Davies.
Davies’ fury with Chaney was boiling over. He snapped when Chaney directed a homophobic slur at him.
Davies said he grabbed a gun that was in the car. He smashed it against Chaney’s head. A round accidentally went off, Davies said.
The bullet whizzed by Hagen’s head. Hagen angrily shoved Davies to the ground.
“Everything was in slow motion,” Davies said. “Everything was just moving really slow at that time.”
Hagen checked on Chaney. He was out cold, but still alive.
Witnesses, including the one accomplice who testified during Davies' trial, said Cavallaro snatched the gun from Davies' hand.
Cavallaro kicked Chaney in the face. Trial testimony revealed that Chaney's jaw was damaged and that injury was unrelated to the fatal gunshot.
Cavallaro then aimed the gun and fired, a few witnesses told investigators. Chaney was fatally shot in the head.
Cavallaro coolly tucked the weapon into Davies' pants and said, “Now that’s how you do it," Davies recalled.
That's when the gang decided it was time to go. The group of six headed back to Daytona Beach, not long after some in the group that night would splinter off.
Chaney’s body rotted for more than seven weeks. His skull and bones were found July 29 by a hunter. Chaney’s denim shorts were lying on the ground and contained some of the bones. His wallet was still in one of the pockets, according to the Volusia County Sheriff's Office.
Detectives contacted Chaney's mother in Oregon to tell her that her son's remains may have been found. They asked for more information about her son and she provided some basics, adding that she had not seen her son in more than two years. They called her back a couple days later confirming that her son had died. She asked no questions, according to an investigative report.
The Canadian did it
“I didn’t kill that son of a bitch and I’m not going to jail for it. Those crazies killed him.”
That’s what Hagen told authorities on Sept. 29, 1986, at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas, where he and Cavallaro went by then.
A Volusia County Sheriff’s Office report showed that Hagen waived his Miranda rights and told detectives, “The Canadian shot Chaney and then John removed the gun from Davies’ hand and shot Chaney in the head.
“Me and the others did not know he was going to shoot the guy until he did it,” Hagen said.
The .38-caliber lead projectile that killed Chaney was recovered at the scene by a state crime lab technician.
Back in Volusia County, Hughes was caught driving Chaney's car, according to sheriff’s reports.
Deputies were led in Parker's direction when witnesses came forward saying they overheard her talking about the shooting.
Before long, detectives had easy access to Parker, Hughes and Noojin because all of them were sitting in the local jail. All three agreed to be interviewed. They told different stories, but Parker took the lead when it came to pinning the murder on Davies, according to sheriff's reports. She told detectives Davies had intended to kill Chaney that day because he was afraid Chaney would turn him in for some of the robberies The Family committed.
Parker was the mother hen of The Family. Her story about Davies wanting Chaney dead would soon be repeated by the other members.
Davies was far from Volusia County by that time but easy to find. He had been arrested on a gun possession charge and was sent to a juvenile facility, the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, a place infamous for child torture and deaths. He had lied about his age when he was picked up for that charge.
When Volusia sheriff’s detectives showed up in Marianna to inquire about the Chaney slaying, Davies demanded an attorney.
A Volusia County judge called Robert Davies’ house one random day during the summer of 1986. The judge introduced himself as Robert E. Lee. He asked the elder Davies for his son’s date of birth. He gave it to him. That was the first time Davies discovered that his son was in Florida since he left home in a stolen car. There was no indication that Florida authorities had contacted the Canadian consulate to report they were holding one of its citizens in juvenile detention.
Cavallaro eventually was caught, but the 20 pages of arrest reports from the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office didn’t disclose how and where he was found. The lead investigator never took a statement from him, based on court testimony.
Cavallaro, even though numerous people identified him as the person who shot Chaney in the head, wound up serving two years for the murder. Parker, Noojin, Hagen and Hughes all struck deals. They served probation or short jail sentences.
Davies could have accepted a plea. In a letter he wrote while in jail, which was included among the state’s evidence at trial, Davies said he intended to plead guilty to second-degree murder.
“It ain’t doing no good with everyone locked up,” Davies wrote to someone named Mark.
“If I plea bargin (sic), I’ll only get 5-10 (years) and I’ll be out in 3.3 years,” he continued. “Ain’t no big (expletive deleted).”
Davies, in the end, refused to plead to anything other than not guilty.
“I wouldn’t have copped to it if I thought I could’ve (served my sentence) in a couple months,” Davies said in the prison interview. “I didn’t kill Jack (Chaney).
“At that time it was really important for me to have that bravado image. It was really important to me at that time to be recognized as a stand-up dude,” he said.
Davies was on the hook for Chaney’s murder. Anything other than an acquittal meant he was never going home. He was Canadian. People in Canada didn't go to prison for life, especially those who didn't kill anybody. That's what he thought back then.
Despised hoodlum
“You’ve been a burden to mankind,” Circuit Judge Kim C. Hammond told Davies before he sentenced him to life in prison. “You seem to be without remorse. You’re what many of the people in this country and the world despise in young hoodlums.”
The harsh words flowed past Davies. He was numb. By then, he had come to the realization he was going to be convicted.
Davies’ parents sat in the courtroom. They were joined by a family pastor.
Davies was represented by Carmen Corrente, a court-appointed attorney. Corrente is now a Florida assistant attorney general.
Davies doesn't think Corrente gave him adequate legal representation.
“I got found guilty because of my lawyer,” he said.
During his closing arguments, Corrente told jurors to blame him for not calling Davies to the stand as he had promised.
His mea culpa didn't end there. Corrente referred to a pledge he made during his opening statement that he would call one of the accomplices, Hagen, to the stand as a witness.
“I made that decision,” he told jurors. “I apologize for misleading you at the beginning of the trial, but I made that decision because I didn’t need to call him.”
Davies was astonished when he heard that.
"I knew then I was out of gas," he said.
A major witness who was called to the stand was Noojin, who said he had been drunk in the backseat of the Cadillac. He said he got up and relieved himself through an open window of the car as the bullets flew.
He said he was 20 feet away and saw everything because it was a full moon that night. He alleged that Davies shot Chaney, who was shaking on the ground. Then Cavallaro grabbed the gun and shot Chaney again. Chaney stopped shaking after that, Noojin said.
Prosecutor Gene White, by comparison to defense counsel, exuded confidence during his closing statements. During his rebuttal closing, he insisted his case was iron-clad, even though his only eyewitness admitted to being intoxicated.
“If this isn’t the best case Volusia County has seen for a long time, I will eat my notebook here,” White told jurors.
Jurors took two hours to convict.
Carol Davies had a breakdown inside the courtroom when the verdict was read.
“My baby, my baby!” she screamed. She was carried out of the courtroom and driven back to her motel room where she was sedated. She didn’t attend the penalty phase of the trial.
Davies, meanwhile, never wept. He never flinched. He remained stoic throughout the verdict and then during the penalty phase of the trial.
That angered Hammond and he let Davies know it when it came time to sentence him. The judge couldn't understand how the defendant's mother could come so unglued while the defendant himself showed nothing and said nothing.
Davies said the judge couldn’t see how much the case had taken a toll on him. Rashes covered his arms and body, he said.
Corrente recently told The News-Journal he wouldn't answer questions about his involvement in the case.
"Due to my current position working in the criminal division of the State’s Attorney General Office, I have no comment on cases which I handled as a criminal defense attorney," he said.
Transfer under review
Gov. Rick Scott knows about Davies’ pursuit of a transfer to Canada.
“We are reviewing this request,” said McKinley Lewis, a Scott spokesman.
During a media conference Scott had in November 2017 in Toronto, the Canadian media asked the Florida governor about Davies. Scott was in town to promote Florida tourism.
“The process in our state, there is a commission called the Commission on Offender Review that people have to go through, but in our state we are very focused on the victims and their families,” he said to one reporter.
He repeated the name of the commission to another reporter who asked a follow-up question and the conference ended.
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Davies has been denied parole and isn’t expected to have another parole hearing scheduled until 2019. A transfer seems to be his best chance to leave the Florida penal system.
One of his biggest advocates is Ellen Gardner, who lives in Toronto.
She said the Canadian government has announced three times to Florida its readiness to accept Davies as an inmate.
“That’s where it’s kind of hit a wall,” she said.
“It’s just a big silence,” Gardner said, describing any response from Scott’s office. “They don’t tell us why. They don’t even give you an answer.”
There is a cultural divide between Canadians and Americans when it comes to criminal justice. The Canadian legal system prioritizes rehabilitation over punishment. In Florida, conviction rates are higher, sentences are longer and prisons are more crowded.
"It's crazy to us that (Florida) would lock someone up for life, especially a teenager," Gardner said.
Stories have been published in various Canadian outlets about Davies’ case. Attorneys there have weighed in.
Loftus Cuddy, a retired Toronto lawyer, told the Canadian Press two years ago that Davies’ conviction and life sentence warrant scrutiny.
“We’ve been voices crying in the wilderness about this,” he told the news outlet.
The Canadian Press also reported that transfers of prisoners from U.S. prisons to Canada are rare — lottery-winning rare. The odds decrease even more for Florida.
The Sunshine State holds the most Canadian prisoners among all U.S. states and only four Florida inmates were transferred between 2000 and 2010.
Davies desperately wants to go back to Canada. His mother's health is on the decline and he doesn't think she has much time left.
"With all due respect to Jack Chaney's mother, I hate the fact that the state of Florida knew who killed her son and let him go," he said. "I would ask the state of Florida to make my family's life a little less miserable."
Not the same guy
The latest whereabouts of Parker, Noojin and Hagen are not known. Hughes served prison time in the 1990s for check fraud and aggravated assault without an intent to kill. He was released from prison in 1998. There is no record of him being jailed anywhere in Florida at any time since then.
Cavallaro has a long criminal history. He is serving a five-year prison sentence for a 2017 felony battery conviction. An arrest report showed he had struck another man with a table leg during an argument about a football game in Daytona Beach. He is being housed at Tomoka Correctional Institution near Daytona Beach.
Hammond died in July 2017. Davies said he harbors no resentment for the judge who at the time seemed inclined to show no mercy. He even wrote Hammond a letter several years ago.
“I actually thanked him," Davies said.
During the judge’s speech to Davies, he told the 19-year-old he hoped there was some good in him, at least that's how Davies remembered it.
Those words carried him through some difficult times. Davies said he made sure that he mentioned in his letter to Hammond that the good in him had surfaced.
“I couldn’t be who I am today without all of that,” he said. “I don’t know whether he meant for that or not.”
Davies has had his troubles in prison, too. He was caught with drugs just weeks after his conviction. He's also disobeyed orders, and been disciplined for destruction of property and fighting. For years he was still dealing with a lot of pent-up anger, but he has been free of any disciplinary issues for almost four years. His last violation was for tattooing in June 2014, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
The animosity he harbored for Cavallaro and the others has abated.
"Once upon a time, all I knew was hate," he said.
"My hate was almost to the level of insanity. ... I had to forgive me first and then I started forgiving others. I hold no malice towards them."
Davies got emotional after he was asked how much he had changed during the past 30 years.
“I’m going to say it like this. That kid is dead and gone and (has) been dead and gone,” he said. “In fact, sometimes when I look back, I can’t even grasp who and what that kid was. I think the only answer I can give is what hasn’t changed? I can’t think of anything that hasn’t.”