Sage Curry was convicted of killing Zhaneta Dindi and Hera Dindi in Largo, Florida. (Courtroom screenshot from WTVT/YouTube)
A Florida man was convicted of randomly following home and murdering a 78-year-old woman and her teenage granddaughter with “the sharpest kitchen knife he could find” as they slept.
Sage Curry, 22, was convicted of two counts of murder and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in the deaths of Zhaneta Dindi and Hera Dindi, 17, online court records show. Jurors only needed an hour to return their verdict, rejecting his insanity defense, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
“We came here from a poor country (Albania) with nothing and wanted our children to succeed. Hera didn’t have that chance,” Arreti Dindi, daughter of Zhaneta Dindi and aunt of Hera Dindi, said in court, the newspaper reported. “This is where we are today. This is what he did to us. He took our future. Hera wanted to have her own family one day, and he took that from her.”
The complaint and arrest affidavit spelled out the details of the April 26, 2021, killings in Largo and what the defendant told police happened. He said he followed Zhaneta Dindi home, entering through the bedroom window and stabbed her multiple times with “the sharpest kitchen knife he could find” — a butcher’s knife — for an unknown reason while she was sleeping, court documents said.
He also told investigators he rolled Zhaneta Dindi off the couch to make the incident look like an accident before he left the residence, the affidavit said.
He got hurt during the killings, and police were called to the location when he sought help from a neighbor, the document said.
The Times reported Curry was cut in the hand and head by Hera Dindi, who tried to stop the attack on her grandmother. Hera Dindi was stabbed nine times in the throat, the paper reported.
Police found the victims dead on the floor of the home. Zhaneta Dindi had multiple stab wounds in her chest area, according to the affidavit.
Curry appeared for his bond hearing, holding his right forearm and hand wrapped in a bandage in courtroom video footage aired by local Fox affiliate WTVT on April 27, 2021.
Largo Police Department Lt. Scott Gore told NBC News the killing was “a random act with no known relationship between the victims and the arrested.”
Neighbors said the women were frequently seen walking through the neighborhood.
“They were probably here just wanting a peaceful life, that sort of thing,” Dan McDonald, whose son was a friend of one of the family’s sons, told WTVT. “I never heard about them bothering anybody. They were just trying to be on with their lives.”
Curry’s mother, Angela Curry, told the Times she struggled to afford medication for her son’s mental health.
“I knew he was mentally ill, and I wanted him to get help,” she said.
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