For much of the afternoon, the bearded and bedraggled man bowed his head as portions of his life played out in a Clay County courtroom.
Also laid out for a judge was the life that the 37-year-old man snuffed out as well as the life of his capture, a 10-year old he kidnapped and raped over a period of hours but who survived.
Sexual predator Donald Hugh Davidson had only been free from incarceration for 72 days in December 2014 before he killed 35-year-old Roseann Kasama Welsh in her Middleburg home. The two had known one another for 20 years. For hours he attempted to rape Welsh. As her daughter’s school bus was pulling up to the house, Davidson wrapped a shoelace around Welsh’s throat and strangled her. He then stabbed her.
When Davidson emerged from the bedroom, Welsh’s 10-year-old daughter was sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework. Davidson ordered her to take her clothes off. The sexual assault lasted hours.
Davidson stunned a courtroom in May when he told 4th Judicial Circuit Judge Don Lester he wanted to get his death-penalty case over with and pleaded guilty to the rape and murder charges.
Davidson’s guilty pleas skipped the guilt phase of the case and went straight to the penalty phase. Because this is a capital case, there are only two options: life behind bars without the possibility of parole or being sent to Death Row.
Davidson’s penalty phase continued last week and finished Monday, with the judge’s decision still to be decided.
Davidson opted to have a judge decide his fate rather than a jury. Davidson, said attorney Mark Wright, wanted to spare jurors from seeing and hearing the horrors of his crimes.
Those who did sit in the courtroom over the days of the hearings heard graphic descriptions of what Davidson did to the mother and daughter. First Coast News typically streams gavel-to-gavel court coverage of the guilt and penalty phases of high-profile cases such as this one, but because of the graphic nature the television station opted to not stream the proceedings.
“This defendant is not deserving of this court’s mercy,” Hutton said.
The court also heard that Davidson had been sexually molested over the years starting in the second grade. They heard how his great-grandmother would slap him violently and then force him to hug her afterward. They learned of the chaos in Davidson’s young life that was rife with living with rodents, roaches and sex offenders.
“How can that not spawn shame and anger? How can that not spawn anxiety and depression,” asked Wright.
They also learned Davidson was a registered sexual predator after molesting two girls on two different occasions in 2004. Davidson had been under court-supervision and was wearing a GPS ankle monitor when he killed Welsh and kidnapped and rapped Welsh’s daughter.
Welsh’s teenage son found his dead mother in the home after school.
Last week he told Lester every day is a reminder of what he lost that day in 2014. He said that his anger builds up to the point where he thinks he is going to explode.
He said he misses the hugs each morning. He said every day is a struggle now.
“I wake up every day not wanting to get up because I know my mother will never be there again. I have a large hole in my heart and I just don’t understand why this happened to my family and me.”
Even through the state and defense have rested their cases, death-penalty cases in Florida have what are called Spencer Hearings. This hearing will allow Davidson’s team of attorneys to present evidence that may have been left out during the case. The Spencer Hearing is scheduled for Aug. 12. Some time after that Lester will decide how Davidson dies in jail: naturally from a life sentence or at the hands of the state.
Eileen Kelley: (904) 359-4104