FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, October 11, 1999
ALFORD LEONARD MARDIS FOUND GUILTY

Naples, FL — State Attorney Joseph P. D’Alessandro has announced that Alford Leonard “Lenny” Mardis, 28, of Golden Gate, has been found guilty-as-charged by a Collier County jury on two counts of Second Degree Murder, one count of Projecting a Deadly Missile into a Dwelling and Shooting within a Dwelling. Circuit Judge Thomas S. Reese presided over the trial. The jury returned the verdict Friday afternoon, October 8, following a four-day trial. It took only one hour to deliberate. Mardis faces up to Life in prison on the Second-degree murder charges. The other two charges are second degree felonies punishable by up to 15 years in state prison. He is tentatively scheduled to be sentenced November 8, 1999, at 1:30 p.m., at the Collier County Courthouse. Assistant State Attorneys Delano J. Brock and Dave Scuderi, of the Naples State Attorney’s Office, successfully prosecuted the case.

On April, 23, 1997, Mardis drove his car through the front wall of an apartment, located in Golden Gate, that was occupied by his wife and three other people. The defendant exited his vehicle and shot his wife to death with a .22 caliber rifle. He then proceeded to chase one of the male occupants of the apartment on foot for a distance of two blocks. Mardis then took aim with his rifle and shot the male in the head, killing him. Deputies of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office immediately responded to the murder scene. Eyewitnesses identified Mardis as the killer. Deputies located Mardis a short time after the shootings and took him into custody. The defendant has been held at the Collier County Jail since the date of his arrest.

Mardis originally stood trial, at the Collier County Courthouse, in October 1997. He was convicted by the jury of all his charges but was granted a new trial due to procedural irregularities. Mardis used an insanity defense in both of his trials.