Trial and More Skeletons
In Punta Gorda, Conahan waived his right to a jury trial on August 9, 1999. The star witness was Stanley Burden who had been nearly killed in 1994. Conahan's attorney rebutted that Burden was an imprisoned pedophile, serving a 10- to 25-year sentence in Ohio. On August 17, 1999, Judge William Blackwell deliberated for 25 minutes and found Conahan guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and kidnapping. Conahan succeeded in moving the penalty phase of his trial to Collier County but, in November, a jury recommended a sentence of death and Judge Blackwell agreed on December 10.
Several more bodies were discovered in the Charlotte County area with similarities to the Hog Trail Killings: one in 2000, two in 2001, and one in 2002. On March 23, 2007, eight skulls and skeletal remains were found in a wooded area in Fort Myers, the largest such discovery in Florida history. Although a connection to a closed funeral home was considered possible, speculation soon turned to Conahan. Stanley Burden, the star witness at Conahan's trial, had been attacked within a mile of the site where the eight skeletons were found. Two were later identified as men who had disappeared in 1995.
Conahan is currently housed at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida.
Read more about this topic: Daniel Conahan
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