XPost: va.politics, alt.politics.homosexuality, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: fl.politics   
   From: gay.lies.matter@abc.com   
      
   The violent slaying of Alexandria marketing executive Sam Del   
   Brocco in Florida in 2010 shocked his friends and family, and   
   pulled back the curtain on an apparent double life Del Brocco   
   was leading in the gay bar scene of Fort Lauderdale. The case   
   was unsolved until a DNA hit in 2013 led the police to a male   
   stripper and porn star, John “Champ” Snavely, who was arrested   
   and charged with murder.   
      
   But that was three years ago. And with no trial date in sight,   
   Snavely’s lawyer has now filed a motion to dismiss the case,   
   backed up by a raft of newly released police reports to support   
   his contention that Del Brocco, 60, was alive when Snavely last   
   saw him, and that Del Brocco picked up a second man later the   
   same night who killed him.   
      
   “The best evidence shows,” said H. Dohn Williams, Snavely’s   
   lawyer, “that Mr. Snavely was one of Mr. Del Brocco’s many young   
   companions, both that day and in the past, and he did not kill   
   Mr. Del Brocco.”   
      
   Snavely’s DNA was found on the rim of a Coke can in the trash of   
   Del Brocco’s Pompano Beach townhouse, where he often traveled on   
   weekends, and his fingerprints were on the outside of Del   
   Brocco’s newly washed Porsche, court records show. When Snavely,   
   now 29, was first arrested in July 2013, he denied knowing Del   
   Brocco or ever being in his home. Two months later he told   
   detectives he had been in Del Brocco’s home the night of the   
   slaying, but had left with Del Brocco and that the two had   
   parted without incident, newly filed police reports show.   
      
   Williams’s motion to dismiss the case against Snavely is set for   
   a Dec. 2 hearing in Broward County Circuit Court, but both   
   Williams and Assistant Broward District Attorney Will Sinclair   
   said the hearing will not happen because of scheduling conflicts   
   and the need for further briefs. If the case is not dismissed, a   
   trial for Snavely likely will not occur until the summer of   
   2017, nearly seven years after Del Brocco’s death.   
      
   Sandra Bain, a longtime friend of Del Brocco’s from Alexandria,   
   said she and her husband, Jackson Bain, were “disappointed that   
   the prosecutor has not brought this case to trial.” She noted   
   that Broward authorities have “a suspect who lied to them about   
   his involvement at first, and later admitted he was at our   
   friend’s house that evening, and DNA evidence from the suspect   
   was at the murder scene. To us nonprofessionals, this evidence   
   indicates he was the last person to see Sam alive.”   
      
   [From 2012: Friends of Alexandria’s Sam Del Brocco make push to   
   solve his 2010 slaying]   
      
   The case has been delayed in part by Snavely repeatedly   
   switching lawyers, from private attorneys to public defenders   
   and now back to Williams, who is court-appointed. Sinclair also   
   noted that in Florida, the defense is entitled to take   
   depositions of the prosecution witnesses, which has been ongoing   
   but tends to take a lot of time. “It’s not unusual,” Sinclair   
   said of the years between arrest and trial. “Everything varies   
   depending on the complexity of the case.”   
      
   In addition, the Florida Supreme Court has shown an inclination   
   to overturn guilty verdicts from juries in murder cases where   
   the evidence was mainly circumstantial. The court ruled in 1982   
   that “where the only proof of guilt is circumstantial, no matter   
   how strongly the evidence may suggest guilt, a conviction cannot   
   be sustained unless the evidence is inconsistent with any   
   reasonable hypothesis of innocence.”   
      
   And Snavely’s lawyer has plenty of hypotheses.   
      
   Del Brocco was the co-founder and co-owner of PCI Communications   
   in Alexandria, a public relations business with clients such as   
   Fannie Mae and the Washington Nationals. He also spent time   
   buying and selling real estate around Northern Virginia and in   
   South Florida, where he grew up. In the spring of 2010, he   
   bought an eight-bedroom, $1.1 million house in the Fort Hunt   
   area of Fairfax County and an $850,000 townhouse in a gated   
   community in Pompano Beach and began renovating them, with   
   regular trips to Fort Lauderdale, police learned.   
      
   On the morning of Sept. 11, 2010, Del Brocco flew to Fort   
   Lauderdale and went to his townhouse. Records show he had his   
   Porsche Carrera cleaned at a carwash at about 3 p.m. in Pompano   
   Beach, and had dinner at a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale about 8   
   p.m. Using cellphone records, Broward sheriff’s deputies tracked   
   Del Brocco’s movements back to Pompano Beach around 9 p.m., then   
   returning to Fort Lauderdale sometime after 10 p.m., where a   
   drug dealer told them he sold Del Brocco crack and marijuana   
   four times throughout the night. Del Brocco then returned to   
   Pompano around 11:25 p.m., with his last outgoing call at 12:06   
   a.m.   
      
   Longtime friend Carlos Larraz from Maryland could not find Del   
   Brocco the following day and asked police to check on him.   
   Sheriff’s deputies found his body in a pool of blood in his   
   second-floor bedroom. He had been stabbed several times in the   
   chest and back and had no defensive wounds, police reports show.   
   Both of his cellphones and his laptop were gone and have never   
   been found.   
      
   [From 2010: Alexandria businessman’s slaying a shock, mystery]   
      
   Detectives learned that Del Brocco was a frequent visitor to   
   Fort Lauderdale gay strip clubs and they found dancers he had   
   hired to come to his home in the past. Many of Del Brocco’s   
   friends in the D.C. area said they did not know he was gay. But   
   the police could not find anyone who remembered seeing Del   
   Brocco on his final night. An unknown DNA sample on a Coke can,   
   and the unknown fingerprints on the Porsche, were investigators’   
   best hopes.   
      
   Then in July 2013, Snavely was arrested for drug possession. His   
   DNA was entered into the national database, and days later, it   
   matched the DNA from the Del Brocco home, as did his   
   fingerprints. Snavely was not a match to the DNA from hair on   
   the presumed murder weapon, a bloody butcher knife found stashed   
   under a rug, nor on a marijuana joint in Del Brocco’s bedroom.   
   But bloody footprints tracking away from Del Brocco’s body were   
   close in size to Snavely’s, police records show.   
      
   Snavely was arrested and charged with second-degree murder that   
   month. Detectives say they believe Del Brocco met Snavely at a   
   strip club and convinced him to come back to his townhouse.   
   Snavely, with a history of violent behavior and drug arrests,   
   told police that he would sometimes perform private dances for   
   men but leave before sexual activity occurred, a police   
   affidavit stated.   
      
   [Man arrested in Alexandria businessman’s killing]   
      
   But Snavely “could give no explanation as to how or why his DNA   
   would be on the crime scene,” Detective John W. Curcio wrote. He   
   added, “Snavely seemed to question himself about whether or not   
   he could have been involved in the victim’s death and not   
   remember it due to drug use.”   
      
   Two months later, when Curcio went back to obtain hair and   
   fingerprints, Snavely said he wanted to talk again. This time,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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