FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Mary Ann Ilyankoff still remembers details about the airless July morning 38 years ago when her husband Walter, a Fort Lauderdale police officer, was killed on the job.
Moments like the hot summer sun on the back of her neck on a sleepy Sunday morning as a patrol car sped her to Holy Cross Hospital, where Walter was taken with three gunshot wounds after the armed robbery of a Red Lobster restaurant.
Three surviving men imprisoned for killing Ilyankoff want their freedom. They will have a parole hearing, likely in August.
Ilyankoff's widow, former colleagues and State Attorney Michael Satz, who won the convictions, don't want that to happen.
Ilyankoff was 40 and a 15-year Police Department veteran. Mary Ann, who became a substitute teacher, was 39. They shared a son.
She recalls keeping vigil at the hospital in the 45 minutes between the shooting and her husband's death -- a tough sergeant with reddened eyes giving her updates on Walter's condition, until there was no more news.
That day and night, police officers shared details on the pursuit of four men, three of whom were caught within 24 hours.
Fort Lauderdale Police Detective Travis Mandell said Ilyankoff's murder united two families.
"The Fort Lauderdale Police Department lost a brother," Mandell said. Ilyankoff's former patrol partner, retired Sgt. Howard Smith, still remembers the 9:17 a.m. radio summons.
"Walt came over the radio," Smith said of Ilyankoff's call from the restaurant at 5950 N. Federal Highway. " 'Help, I've been shot.' I believe he said it twice."
Smith said his partner drove around the Red Lobster one and a half times before going inside. Alvin Ford surprised Ilyankoff with two shots to the stomach and, after the officer fell, one behind his ear.
Ford escaped with the officer's gun and police car. Smith found it abandoned on the west side of the Executive Airport. Ford's cohorts had already fled, but were caught in northern Florida. One was captured in Guatemala, three months later.
Ford died on death row. Satz says George DeCosta, 63, Alvin R. Lewis, 59, and Henry Robinson, 64, all in north Florida prisons, should not be paroled.
"The facts of the crime speak for themselves," Satz said.
They were all given life sentences at a time when Florida law allowed parole appeals for such convictions.
"Now if you receive life imprisonment, it's life," Satz said. "It was a brutal killing of a really fine man and a well-respected police officer. It was a violent, planned robbery and they came all the way down here from northern Florida to do it."
Mary Ann Ilyankoff, 77, says she'll journey to Tallahassee, as she has so many times before, to speak before the state parole commission.
"If they get out, I'm absolutely afraid," she said. "I've helped keep them there all this time."
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
