Marty Puccio

Martin Joseph Puccio (born March 1, 1973) (usually called Marty) is an American murderer. In the early morning hours of July 15, 1993, Puccio, along with six others murdered Bobby Kent in Weston, Florida.

Early Life

Marty Puccio was born and raised in Broward County, Florida. He and Kent had been friend since third grade. Puccio was Italian-American and raised a strict Catholic.

Teenage Years and Relationship with Bobby Kent

Kent and Puccio had known each other since third grade, had lived on the same block in Broward County since that time, and were good friends as adults. Bad blood, however, existed between the two. Puccio felt "ill-will and hatred" towards Kent because Kent would bully and pummel him. Puccio also reported that Kent had raped him several times.

Kent and Puccio had also delved into making homosexual porn movies in the hopes they could sell them to local shops to earn extra money. Neither Kent nor Puccio actually participated in these movies, but rather allegedly directed them and either coaxed or forced Lawrence Shafer, a Florida man in his early 40's to commit lewd acts on camera. Kent tried to peddle the movie, entitled Rough Boys, to porn shops across south Florida. However, none took him up on the offer due to the poor audio and video quality as well as the lack of any sellable sexual activities in the film beyond Shafer dancing nude and playing with a dildo.

The Murder

For a few weeks prior to his death, Kent dated Alice (Ali) Willis, best friend of Puccio’s girlfriend, Lisa Connelly, and when Willis moved back with her parents in Palm Bay, Florida, and broke up with him, Kent said he was going to murder her and smother her baby unless she returned to Broward County to date him. Willis returned and she and Connelly concocted a plan to kill Kent. The girls obtained a gun and lured Kent to a rock pit in west Broward but backed out at the last minute. Later that night, Kent and Willis were seen holding hands but then, according to Willis, Kent raped her at her house.

The next day, July 15, 1993, a wider circle of friends conspired to kill Kent and again lured him to the rock pit in an undeveloped area in Western Broward County, Florida, which is now the neighborhood of Weston. Puccio had told Kent that they were going to race cars (specifically Willis' high-powered 5.0 Ford Mustang) and that Willis wanted to have sex with him again. That night, despite blistering Florida summer heat and humidity, Puccio was dressed in black jeans, a black trenchcoat and had a red bandana tied around his head. According to Willis, "Marty came out of (his) house looking like Rambo."

Sometime around midnight, Willis led Kent away from the group down by a canal that ran up against the area. Heather Swallers then was instructed by Derek Kaufman to join them and figure out if Kent suspected anything. If she felt he didn't, Kaufman told her to ask Kent if there were any alligators in the canal. Once she did that, the murder would commence. Swallers asked Kent if the canal had any alligators and Kent sarcastically told her she should go skinny dipping and find out for herself.

Almost immediately after, Donny Semenec charged Kent and stabbed him from behind in his neck. Kent whirled around and called out to Puccio for help. Puccio then stabbed him in the abdomen, and when Kent tried to flee, Semenec, Kaufman, and Puccio tackled him and stabbed and beat him. Several times during the murder, Kent pleaded and begged Puccio for mercy, telling his friend "I'm sorry! Marty, whatever I did, I'm sorry!" but Puccio continued. While Kent was down, Puccio cut his throat and hit his head against the ground so hard he fractured a vertebrae in Kent's neck.

Kaufman delivered the final blow with a weighted baseball bat to the head. Kent's body was then dumped into a canal however there are conflicting reports over who did it, either Kaufman and Dzvirko or Kaufman and Puccio.

Dzvirko was also the one who led Det. Frank Illaraza of the Broward County Police Department to Kent's body a few days later.

Others Involved

Lisa Marie Conelly

Alice Jean Willis

Donald Roth Semenec Jr.

Derek Leon Kaufman

Derek George Dzvirko

Heather June Swallers

Media

The story of the killing is described in Jim Schutze's book Bully: A True Story of High School Revenge, which was made into a 2001 movie called Bully directed by Larry Clark. Puccio was portrayed by Brad Renfro in the film. The A&E television network also documented the story on its popular American Justice program.

Other Information

On January 5, 1994 Lisa Connelly, Puccio's girlfriend gave birth to their child Megan Connelly. She was raised in Broward County, Florida by Connelly's mother.