(This article was updated to include a photo gallery from the sentencing hearing.)
Angel Alejandro Lobato was sentenced to life in state prison during a disposition hearing Sept. 3 at the Bartow Courthouse and following his conviction last week for his role in the murder of Danne Frazier.
He had been found guilty Aug. 25 during a jury trial of first-degree murder and eight other charges related to his role in the killing of Frazier.
Angel Lobato, 23, and his brother had been convicted of luring Frazier, 21, via Facebook to a remote site in November 2020 for a romantic meet-up.
During the brothers’ trials, prosecutors said Frazier was beaten in the head with a baseball bat and stabbed in the neck with a knife. His body was dumped in a citrus grove near unincorporated Lake Wales.
His body was later found in an advanced state of decomposition when vultures were spotted circling above a pile of vegetation by a couple of land surveyors.
Investigators used financial transactions and surveillance videos from gas stations in Bartow in the days after Frazier’s disappearance to eventually tie the Lobatos to the murder.
A grand jury had indicted Angel Lobato on an additional eight charges of robbery with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, accessory after the fact to a capital felony, burglary of an occupied conveyance, grand theft of a motor vehicle, tampering with physical evidence, criminal use of personal identification information, and providing false information to law enforcement during an investigation.
He was found guilty of all nine counts listed in the indictment, the jury verdict form shows.
While the State Attorney’s Office had filed paperwork in December 2020 saying it intended to seek the death penalty in this case, the state did not pursue capital punishment at trial.
Angel Lobato’s brother, Jo Lobato, 24, had avoided a death sentence when the same jury that convicted him of first-degree murder recommended a sentence of life in prison on Oct. 18, which the judge imposed.
The State Attorney’s Office did not respond to an email asking why the death penalty was not pursued in Angel Lobato’s case.
Angel Lobato apologies
Retired Circuit Judge William Bruce Smith presided over the sentencing of Angel Lobato, which included a statement by him to the victim’s family.
According to the victim’s mother, Leslie C. Fraizer, before the sentence was imposed, her family received an apology from Angel Lobato, who said he was sorry for what he had done.
“He apologized to me and my family,” Frazier said by text after the sentencing.
“And (he) also stated that my family has shown him how a family is supposed to be loved,” she said. “Because he didn’t have that in his life.”
During Jo Lobato’s trial, the defense presented mitigation during the penalty phase saying the brothers had endured abuse as children and suggested drug-fueled satanic rituals were conducted at the home.
He lived in 17 different homes with multiple parents, including biological parents and stepparents between Polk County and West Virginia, Jo Lobato’s defense attorney Robert Anthony Norgard said. He attended 16 different schools, mostly in Polk County, and during the various moves the brothers were often living in separate homes.
As an infant, his mother was imprisoned, and he lived with a grandmother. In another home, he was subjected to mental, emotional and physical abuse and “literally tortured” by having his hand held above a hot stove for punishment.
By August 2020, Jo Lobato attempted suicide by slitting his wrist, his defense said. Months before the killing, they had both fled the home.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Angel Lobato offers apology to family before getting life sentence for Danne Frazier’s murder
Reporting by Paul Nutcher, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
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