Florida man who dropped daughter, 5, off bridge claims insanity

Florida man who dropped daughter, 5, off bridge claims insanity https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A jury has been selected in the murder trial of a Florida man who threw his five-year-old daughter off a Tampa bridge.

It took a week for lawyers to agree on 12 jurors and four alternates to decide the fate of 29-year-old John Jonchuck.

Prosecutors are slated for opening statements at 1 p.m. Monday at the Pinellas County Courthouse.

No one disputes that Jonchuck dropped his daughter Phoebe 62 feet (18 metres) into Tampa Bay on Jan. 8, 2015, and prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. If convicted of first-degree murder, he’ll automatically go to prison for life.

Jonchuck’s lawyers are using an insanity defence. They must convince jurors his mental illness was so severe that he didn’t know what he was doing.

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