C_Spray
04-02-2009, 09:47 AM
Complete article here. (http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/977938.html) Hope this guy died a lingering, painful death....
BY JAY WEAVER AND DAVID OVALLE
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
In 1987, hit man Robert ''Bobby'' Young blew away speedboat mogul Don Aronow in his Mercedes sports car.
Young, paid $60,000 for the contract murder, achieved such notoriety for the gangland-style killing that it secured him a place in the pantheon of South Florida assassins.
On Tuesday, Young, 60, died at Jackson Memorial Hospital, apparently of natural causes, authorities said.
''He finally got what he deserved from a higher authority -- that death sentence he deserved,'' said retired Miami-Dade police Detective Greg Smith, lead investigator on the Aronow murder.
Miami-Dade police pursued the ambush slaying for six years, interviewing terrified witnesses and investigating a twisting path of coincidences, murders, mistresses, mobsters, dopers, spies, jealous boyfriends and snitches before finally stumbling upon Young.
''Robert was a cold-blooded killer. He was full of bravado, and very much into himself,'' said Assistant State Attorney Gary Winston, who put Young away for Aronow's slaying in 1995. ``He would love to talk and reveal the things he had done. Cold and heartless.''
Young had been incarcerated at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami before recently falling ill.
He served his sentence for the Aronow murder in Oklahoma, at the same time he was incarcerated in federal prison for cocaine trafficking.
Young returned to South Florida in 2001, having fled Oklahoma while on parole. He was arrested in Broward County in October 2001 after his ex-brother-in-law gave federal agents his address. They found a revolver and $75,000 on him.
ASSAULT RIFLE
After he was sentenced to 10 years for having the handgun, Young was recorded on the Federal Detention Center phone talking to an associate about planting an assault rifle that Young had owned on the former brother-in-law, according to court records.
''I was very upset that I was betrayed by my own family,'' Young told a federal agent in 2004.
``I was just brokenhearted and figured maybe justice could be done. I could set him up by putting it into his vehicle and having him arrested.
''Let him feel the same pain, suffering and fate that I was feeling,'' he said.
In January, Young was sentenced to a 27-year prison term for owning the assault rifle.
It was but the latest felony conviction in the life of the serial criminal, whose brazen violence was part of the so-called Cocaine Cowboy era in Miami.
PROSTITUTION
Young boasted of involvement with gun-running, prostitution rings and violence during the 1970s.
Later, he was thrown in a Cuban jail after island authorities found him on a boat offshore with 300 pounds of marijuana.
JESSE JACKSON
In 1984, he was released along with 21 other Americans in a deal engineered by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.
Back in Miami, Young hooked up with a group of dope peddlers who considered themselves a new version of the 1960s Dixie Mafia crime group.
Young was later convicted for the 1984 murder of Dixie Mafia member John ''Big Red'' Panzavecchia, in a drug deal gone wrong. After he shot Big Red dead, Young took the man's solid gold Rolex, former Miami homicide Detective Nelson Andreu remembered on Tuesday.
''Bobby took it as a prize and was wearing it when we arrested him,'' Andreu said.
Looking back, Young was lucky to escape the electric chair.
In 1995, he pleaded no contest to the contract hit of Aronow, the powerboat king.
He had cut a deal with state prosecutors that spared him the electric chair -- and ensured he would never testify against Benjamin Barry Kramer, his co-defendant who allegedly paid Young $60,000 to kill Aronow.
`NOT A RAT'
''Bobby is not a rat,'' Young's lawyer, Kayo Morgan, said at the time. ``He is not a cheese-eater.''
In 1996, Kramer, who once owned a casino and raced powerboats, pleaded no contest to ordering the killing of his rival, Aronow. Kramer, already serving a life sentence on federal drug-smuggling charges, received 19 years in prison -- the same time amount of time Young had received.
THUNDERBOAT ALLEY
Aronow, 59, a rich and handsome millionaire among the powerboat set, was killed Feb. 3, 1987, outside his USA Racing office at 3030 NE 188th St. -- a dead-end street dubbed Thunderboat Alley that he made famous with his Formula, Donzi, Magnum and Cigarette speed boats.
So fast were his boats that U.S. Customs agents commissioned Aronow to build an intercept vessel called Blue Thunder.
The $142,000 boats were used to chase drug smugglers, who many times were using Aronow boats themselves.
THREE BULLETS
Aronow had left his office in his white Mercedes, shortly after visiting a rival boat dealership owned by Kramer. Down the street, he stopped next to a Lincoln with a tinted windshield. From the Lincoln, a hit man opened fire. Three bullets struck Aronow's 225-pound frame.
On Tuesday, Smith, the retired detective, called Aronow's widow, Lillian Aronow, to break the news. ''He certainly deserved more than what he got for the death of her husband,'' he said. ``She was relieved, certainly, knowing he died while in custody.''
BY JAY WEAVER AND DAVID OVALLE
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
In 1987, hit man Robert ''Bobby'' Young blew away speedboat mogul Don Aronow in his Mercedes sports car.
Young, paid $60,000 for the contract murder, achieved such notoriety for the gangland-style killing that it secured him a place in the pantheon of South Florida assassins.
On Tuesday, Young, 60, died at Jackson Memorial Hospital, apparently of natural causes, authorities said.
''He finally got what he deserved from a higher authority -- that death sentence he deserved,'' said retired Miami-Dade police Detective Greg Smith, lead investigator on the Aronow murder.
Miami-Dade police pursued the ambush slaying for six years, interviewing terrified witnesses and investigating a twisting path of coincidences, murders, mistresses, mobsters, dopers, spies, jealous boyfriends and snitches before finally stumbling upon Young.
''Robert was a cold-blooded killer. He was full of bravado, and very much into himself,'' said Assistant State Attorney Gary Winston, who put Young away for Aronow's slaying in 1995. ``He would love to talk and reveal the things he had done. Cold and heartless.''
Young had been incarcerated at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami before recently falling ill.
He served his sentence for the Aronow murder in Oklahoma, at the same time he was incarcerated in federal prison for cocaine trafficking.
Young returned to South Florida in 2001, having fled Oklahoma while on parole. He was arrested in Broward County in October 2001 after his ex-brother-in-law gave federal agents his address. They found a revolver and $75,000 on him.
ASSAULT RIFLE
After he was sentenced to 10 years for having the handgun, Young was recorded on the Federal Detention Center phone talking to an associate about planting an assault rifle that Young had owned on the former brother-in-law, according to court records.
''I was very upset that I was betrayed by my own family,'' Young told a federal agent in 2004.
``I was just brokenhearted and figured maybe justice could be done. I could set him up by putting it into his vehicle and having him arrested.
''Let him feel the same pain, suffering and fate that I was feeling,'' he said.
In January, Young was sentenced to a 27-year prison term for owning the assault rifle.
It was but the latest felony conviction in the life of the serial criminal, whose brazen violence was part of the so-called Cocaine Cowboy era in Miami.
PROSTITUTION
Young boasted of involvement with gun-running, prostitution rings and violence during the 1970s.
Later, he was thrown in a Cuban jail after island authorities found him on a boat offshore with 300 pounds of marijuana.
JESSE JACKSON
In 1984, he was released along with 21 other Americans in a deal engineered by civil rights leader Jesse Jackson.
Back in Miami, Young hooked up with a group of dope peddlers who considered themselves a new version of the 1960s Dixie Mafia crime group.
Young was later convicted for the 1984 murder of Dixie Mafia member John ''Big Red'' Panzavecchia, in a drug deal gone wrong. After he shot Big Red dead, Young took the man's solid gold Rolex, former Miami homicide Detective Nelson Andreu remembered on Tuesday.
''Bobby took it as a prize and was wearing it when we arrested him,'' Andreu said.
Looking back, Young was lucky to escape the electric chair.
In 1995, he pleaded no contest to the contract hit of Aronow, the powerboat king.
He had cut a deal with state prosecutors that spared him the electric chair -- and ensured he would never testify against Benjamin Barry Kramer, his co-defendant who allegedly paid Young $60,000 to kill Aronow.
`NOT A RAT'
''Bobby is not a rat,'' Young's lawyer, Kayo Morgan, said at the time. ``He is not a cheese-eater.''
In 1996, Kramer, who once owned a casino and raced powerboats, pleaded no contest to ordering the killing of his rival, Aronow. Kramer, already serving a life sentence on federal drug-smuggling charges, received 19 years in prison -- the same time amount of time Young had received.
THUNDERBOAT ALLEY
Aronow, 59, a rich and handsome millionaire among the powerboat set, was killed Feb. 3, 1987, outside his USA Racing office at 3030 NE 188th St. -- a dead-end street dubbed Thunderboat Alley that he made famous with his Formula, Donzi, Magnum and Cigarette speed boats.
So fast were his boats that U.S. Customs agents commissioned Aronow to build an intercept vessel called Blue Thunder.
The $142,000 boats were used to chase drug smugglers, who many times were using Aronow boats themselves.
THREE BULLETS
Aronow had left his office in his white Mercedes, shortly after visiting a rival boat dealership owned by Kramer. Down the street, he stopped next to a Lincoln with a tinted windshield. From the Lincoln, a hit man opened fire. Three bullets struck Aronow's 225-pound frame.
On Tuesday, Smith, the retired detective, called Aronow's widow, Lillian Aronow, to break the news. ''He certainly deserved more than what he got for the death of her husband,'' he said. ``She was relieved, certainly, knowing he died while in custody.''