Accused killer told deputies ‘I’m already dead’ and barricaded himself in his house
After the triple shotgun-slaying outside Wake Forest, survivors ran screaming into the street, one of them flagging down a car as the accused killer Jonathan Sanders holed up in his house and told deputies “he was already dead,” witnesses said Tuesday.
On the second day of Sander’s death penalty trial, much of the testimony came from witnesses in the suburban neighborhood who saw months of escalating tension between Sander and his next-door neighbors the Mazzella family, who shared a lawn care and landscaping business.
Sander, 52 at the time of the 2016 shooting, faces capital punishment on three counts of first-degree murder, charged in the deaths of Sandy and Stephanie Mazzella and Sandy’s 76-year-mother, Elaine. Superior Court Judge Graham Shirley warned Sander on Tuesday that he had “one more shot” after an outburst in court Monday, in which he shouted an obscenity and had to be pulled from the courtroom.
Wake County Sheriff’s Sgt. Bradley Hecox said he was the first officer on the scene after numerous neighbors called 911 about hearing gunshots. Hecox testified that he discovered the defendant holed up inside his house. He tried for an hour to coax Sander outside along with his wife and children, but “I remember him saying he was not coming out, that he was already dead.”
Witnesses have already testified that relations soured between the two former friends who moved in next door to each other, shared a business and took vacations together. Disputes began with small disagreements such as who would watch the children while they vacationed in Gatlinburg, Tenn., then swelled once the business slowed and the Mazzellas had money trouble.
The escalation continued when a Mazzella family member, a minor, accused Sander of inappropriately touching her. Sandy and his father, Salvatore Mazella, obtained a temporary restraining order against their neighbor that they were unable to make permanent.
Their fighting drew sheriff’s deputies on the morning of the slayings. Then, prosecutors said, Sander warned a bartender at Buffalo Brothers in Wake Forest that he would see Sander on the news the next day.
On the afternoon of March 25, 2016, numerous neighbors testified they saw Salvatore Mazzella running down the driveway in hysterics, announcing that his wife had just been shot.
Neighbor Carrie Ruppert testified that Mazzella flagged down her car on the street and begged her to call 911, then tried to climb into the car. “He told me he thought he would be next.”
Two other neighbors said they saw Sander walking from Mazzella’s house to his own, carrying a shotgun, his children rushing inside.
Neighbor Chris Loeffler called 911 as Mazzella stood beside him wailing, his voice audible on the recording played for the jury.
“You killed my wife!” went the recording of Mazzella’s voice. “My wife! And my daughter-in-law! And my son!”
Deputy Jessica Rattelade described being on her first day of field training, fresh out of the academy, when she and another deputy arrived on the scene she described as “chaos.”
She tended to a woman and three children, whom she later identified as Sander’s wife and children. Rattelade described the older woman as “hysterical” and the female child as “agitated.”
At one point, Rattelade testified, the girl told her, “My father did it. They deserved it. They tried to kill us and my cat and my dog.”
Later Tuesday, jurors heard from Joe Kern, Stephanie Mazzella’s brother, who moved to Wake County when he learned her family needed financial help. He met Sander while living with his sister and testified, “Honestly, I didn’t like him from the get-go. Just the way he talked. He could sell you anything.”
Kern told prosecutors he, his brother-in-law and Sander smoked marijuana nearly every day after work, but that Sander regularly drank to excess. On the day of the shooting, Kern said, Sander was “clearly intoxicated. His eyes were bloodshot. He was leaning up against the tree, slurring his words.”
He told prosecutors that his brother-in-law called Sander “Chester,” as in “Chester the Molester.”
But while Kern said he tried to speak with Sander and make things “more civil,” on cross-examination, Sander’s attorney, Raymond Tarlton, asked Kern whether he remembered saying he would “kill them and their pets and dance on their corpses” in front of Sander’s daughter.
He did not.
Tarlton then asked if Kern recalled setting up a loudspeaker and playing a pair of songs repeatedly, including “Oops upside your head.”
“That was Sandy’s playlist,” Kern said.
Testimony continues Wednesday.
This story was originally published March 26, 2019 at 2:06 PM.