Year long probe delays retrial in case of ’94 triple murder caught on tape

By Dan Christensen, BrowardBulldog.org

Pablo Ibar

Seth Penalver

Broward prosecutors said this week that they have cleared a Florida convict of involvement in one of the county’s most notorious crimes – the 1994 video-taped murders of a Miramar club owner and two models.

For nearly a year, the quiet investigation of inmate William Ortiz had caused the postponement of the Supreme Court ordered retrial of accused killer Seth Penalver.

Ortiz, whose name did not come up in three previous trials, is serving a life sentence upstate for burglary, assault and carjacking in Broward County. He was implicated by at least two witnesses who came forward to identify Ortiz last March after one saw a Spanish television broadcast of part of the home surveillance video in the so-called Casey’s Nickelodeon murders.

But Chief Assistant Broward State Attorney Charles Morton said Miramar detectives now discount Ortiz as a suspect.