Man accused of killing 22-year-old Miami-Dade woman faces jurors for the third time
For the third time in less than a decade, Robert Holton on Monday sat facing a jury with his life on the line.
Accused of stabbing, strangling, setting afire and drowning a woman who more than a decade ago spurned his declarations of love, Holton’s first trial in 2015 ended short of a verdict after jurors learned he was wanted by police for a separate crime. His second trial was cut short again last August by a judge after she received three notes from jurors saying they were deadlocked after two days of deliberations.
On Monday, again facing the charge of first-degree murder for the death of Kayla Gloster in her Naranja apartment in 2013, Holton faced jurors a third time during opening arguments that have become all-too familiar to prosecutors, defense attorneys, family members and friends who sat through the first two trials.
Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Scott Warfman explained to jurors how Holton, at 27, pursued Gloster while she was still in her teens attending an all-girls high school in South Miami. And how after a few years of being spurned — and after Gloster moved on to a new boyfriend — Holton allegedly exploded in a jealous rage.
He told jurors that blood with Holton’s DNA found on the bedroom door, the living room wall and in the kitchen will lead them to conclude he killed Gloster when she was only 22 years old.
“He beat her. He stabbed her. He strangled her and he drowned her,” Warfman told jurors. “He’d been rejected for years by the object of his affection and obsession.”
But defense attorney Jimmy DellaFera said it wasn’t so clear cut. He intended to argue, as he did the previous trial, that the state’s case is full of holes. For instance, DellaFera said, Holton couldn’t have left the apartment and locked the door because the only way in and out was with a fob that was still in the apartment when police arrived long after Gloster’s death.
And, DellaFera said during his opening statement, the evidence will show that Gloster was not murdered in the bathroom of her apartment and dragged there in a comforter as prosecutors claim and that key pieces of evidence left in the apartment were ignored by police.
“For 11 months after they [police] were in complete control of all the evidence they were going to get on Robert Holton, they did not arrest Robert Holton. And that’s because Robert Holton did not kill Kayla Gloster,” said DellaFera.
State prosecutors say Holton, 42, was incensed that Gloster had a boyfriend, and that he spoke to her for an hour on his cellphone before heading south to her apartment where he would end her life. They say Holton was working at the time as a flagger — a person who holds the stop and go traffic sign at construction sites on roadways.
Neither side denies the two had sex after he arrived. But after that, the stories differ. The state says Holton’s blood was found in five different places in the apartment. An expert testified earlier that the odds of someone matching the blood type found to be Holton’s inside the apartment was 2.7 quadrillion to one.
Prosecutors say before killing her, Holton strangled her so mercilessly that blood vessels popped in her eyes and that Holton set her mattress on fire, then wrapped Gloster in a quilt and dragged her into the bathroom where he forced her head down the toilet and drowned her. She had severe cuts on one hand, indicating she fought a knife attack in which she was cut five times on her head and neck.
Holton was taken into custody 11 months after the November 2013 murder and charged with first-degree murder and first-degree arson.
If found guilty, Holton would be facing a possible death sentence. He could be the first person in Miami-Dade to be sentenced to death under new guidelines put in place by state legislators early last year, which now only require a super-majority vote of jurors. Since 2017, a unanimous vote had been required.
This story was originally published April 1, 2024 at 3:57 PM.
