Investigators reconstructed Domenico Gigante’s movements after a roommate described a threat made shortly before four people were shot to death.
BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — Hours before four people were found shot to death in a Canaveral Groves home, Domenico Gigante’s roommate said he heard Gigante threaten his teenage daughter and her family. Cameras then recorded a pickup leaving Gigante’s home, arriving near the victims’ residence and returning less than an hour later. Three years after investigators assembled that sequence, Gigante pleaded guilty to all four murders.
The evidence trail described in an arrest affidavit became central to the case against Gigante, now 40, long before his Aug. 27 guilty pleas made a trial unnecessary. He admitted four counts of first-degree premeditated murder and one count of armed burglary connected to the March 1, 2023, deaths of his daughter, Kiarra Terwilliger, 15; her mother, Constance Terwilliger, 35; Glenda Terwilliger, 63; and Michael Watson, 36. Prosecutors are still seeking the death penalty, and Circuit Judge Laura Moody is expected to determine his sentence.
The chronology began late Feb. 28, according to investigators. Gigante’s roommate told deputies that Gigante was frustrated about his relationship with Kiarra and with members of the household where she lived. Authorities said Kiarra had refused to maintain a relationship with her father. The roommate told investigators that at about 11:30 p.m., Gigante made a statement indicating he planned to go to the family’s home and kill them. At that stage of the case, the roommate’s account was an allegation documented by investigators. Gigante’s later guilty pleas established his responsibility for the murders themselves.
Surveillance video provided investigators with a second, independent chronology. Footage from Gigante’s Rockledge residence showed him leaving at 12:57 a.m. in his pickup with a dark object that appeared to be a firearm. Cameras near the Alan Shepard Avenue home later showed a vehicle matching the description of his truck entering the driveway. At about 1:21 a.m., audio captured by a neighboring surveillance system recorded multiple gunshots and a woman screaming. Roughly two minutes later, investigators said, lights from the vehicle were seen leaving the driveway.
The timing continued at Gigante’s home. According to the affidavit described by local reporters, surveillance showed him returning to his Rockledge residence at about 1:41 a.m. By then, the shootings had occurred but deputies had not yet arrived at the victims’ house. Two younger children had survived inside. One contacted a relative, reportedly through a video call, and the relative contacted emergency authorities. Deputies responded shortly before 2 a.m. and found Kiarra, Constance Terwilliger, Glenda Terwilliger and Watson dead.
Investigators turned their attention to Gigante during the hours that followed. When law enforcement officers contacted him and his roommate, they informed them about Kiarra’s death and asked them to go with investigators for further discussion, according to the affidavit. Gigante went back inside to retrieve his keys. His roommate then approached investigators and said he wanted to be separated from Gigante because he had concerns. The roommate said he had confronted Gigante directly and asked whether he had committed the killings. According to the affidavit, Gigante acknowledged that he had shot his daughter.
The combination of the roommate’s statements and the surveillance chronology gave investigators a framework linking the hours before the shooting to Gigante’s departure and return. Deputies arrested him March 1. Early reports said he was taken into custody at his Rockledge home and held without bond. The killings were initially investigated as an alleged quadruple murder, and Gigante still had the presumption of innocence at that stage. His legal status changed first with the indictment and ultimately with the guilty pleas he entered in 2026.
A Brevard County grand jury indicted Gigante later in March 2023 on four counts of first-degree premeditated murder with a firearm and armed burglary. Prosecutors then announced their intention to seek a death sentence. Their filing identified several circumstances they said supported capital punishment: four people were killed; one victim was Gigante’s daughter; the murders occurred during a burglary; and prosecutors characterized the attack as calculated and premeditated. The State Attorney’s Office continued to maintain that position while the case moved toward trial.
For more than three years, Gigante did not admit the charges in court. He was represented by a public defender for much of that period. Then, in July 2026, he chose to represent himself. That decision put him in control of his own defense as the capital case approached trial. A month later, however, he made an even larger procedural decision by pleading guilty. The admissions meant prosecutors would not have to present the surveillance evidence, witness testimony and other proof to a jury to obtain murder convictions.
At the Aug. 27 hearing, Gigante told Moody that he was accepting responsibility and did not require the state to prove the murders beyond a reasonable doubt. He also waived jury involvement in sentencing. Those waivers have shifted the focus away from whether the evidence establishes guilt and toward how the admitted crimes should be punished. Prosecutors have not softened their position because of the pleas. The State Attorney’s Office said after the hearing that it would continue seeking death.
The surveillance evidence remains significant even without a guilt-phase trial because it shows how investigators said they reconstructed the attack in nearly minute-by-minute fashion. The roommate’s account placed Gigante in a state of conflict with his daughter before midnight. Video then placed him leaving Rockledge, a matching vehicle at the Canaveral Groves residence and the truck back at his home after the shooting. The children’s call brought deputies to the scene, while the roommate’s later conversation with investigators helped focus the inquiry on Gigante the same day.
The victims’ household included people from three generations of the Terwilliger family as well as Watson. Authorities said Gigante entered the home where they were sleeping and fatally shot the four adults and teenager while the two younger children survived. Because the criminal case now rests on guilty pleas, there will be no trial verdict weighing the competing evidence. Gigante has admitted the charged conduct, and the remaining proceeding concerns the sentence for those convictions.
For now, Moody is expected to preside over that proceeding without a jury because Gigante waived a jury penalty hearing. The State Attorney’s Office has said sentencing was anticipated for late October or early November. As of Oct. 17, no final sentence had been publicly reported in the reliable material reviewed here, leaving the judge’s punishment decision as the next major development in the case.
Author note: Last updated October 17, 2026.