(Court TV) — When a 40-year-old mild-mannered librarian with a high IQ killed an ex-girlfriend he was obsessed with, his lawyers claimed it was a crime committed in the heat of the moment and was not premeditated.

But according to prosecutors, William Coday planned to murder Gloria Gomez in advance by lying to her about having cancer in order to lure her to his apartment out of pity. Once there, Gomez was bludgeoned to death — and Coday had already made arrangements to flee to Europe.

A Broward County jury of five men and seven women had to decide whether Coday deserved death for first-degree murder, or was guilty of a lesser crime, such as second-degree murder or manslaughter.

That decision had to be made without knowing about part of Coday's past — nearly 20 years earlier, he was convicted of beating another ex-girlfriend to death.

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THE RELATIONSHIP

William Coday holds bachelor's, master's and law degrees and speaks five languages. At the time of the crime, he headed the international languages collection at the Broward County Library.

While working there in January 1996, he met Gloria Gomez. At the time he was legally separated from his second wife, Tooska Amiri.

Colombian-born Gomez, who had just arrived in the United States, was impressed by Coday's mastery of Spanish and his knowledge of poetry. They dated on and off over the next year.

Gomez had immigration problems and needed to marry to stay in the United States. By the spring of 1997, she moved into Coday's small apartment in the Victoria Park section of Ft. Lauderdale.

According to Coday, the couple discussed marriage and having children. But Gomez moved out shortly after and moved in with a family friend in Miami. While living with Oriola Laverde, a friend of her mother's from Colombia, Gomez began dating Oriola's son, Roger. She and Laverde planned to announce their engagement on July 15, 1997.

Prosecutors say that Coday was obsessed with Gomez, attempting to contact her countless times after she moved out. Even without knowing of her impending engagement, Coday fell into a deep depression and became increasingly angry and jealous about what he suspected was a romantic relationship. Coday's friends and co-workers noticed that he was becoming despondent and losing weight. His obsession with Gomez was about to reach its breaking point.

The Murder

Coday called Gomez at the Laverde household and lured her to his apartment with a lie that he was dying of skin cancer, and had no one else to talk to. Moved by his plea, Gomez arrived at Coday's apartment on the afternoon of July 11, 1997.

By the time police discovered Gomez's body the following day Coday had fled to Europe.

Ironically, it was Coday's colleagues concern for his well-being that led police to the crime scene. When Coday didn't show up for work on Saturday, co-workers worried that in his diminished state he may have tried to harm himself. They called an employee at the apartment complex where he lived to check up on him. The employee found Gomez beaten to death in Coday's bedroom. On the bed next to her body lay a photo of her in sleeping in the same bed.

Flight and "Crepusculo"

Following the murder, Coday took Gomez's car to Miami International Airport and boarded a plane to New York. From there, he was off to Paris, and remained abroad until October 1997 when he returned to New York through Canada.

While on the run from the police in Europe and northern Africa, Coday composed a 200- page document in the form of a letter to his murdered lover. The essay, entitled "Crepusculo: A Journey Into Obsession" is an extraordinarily detailed account of his relationship and obsession with Gomez.

It is clear from "Crepusculo" — which means twilight in Spanish — that much of Coday's interest in the attractive Gomez was sexual. He describes in detail his sexual encounters with Gomez, and credits her with his ability to conquer his sexual phobias.

He also attributes his ability to overcome his lifelong aversion to cigarettes to Gloria, who was a smoker. But, in Coday's eyes Gomez wasn't perfect. He characterizes her as a woman capable of great affection and loyalty one minute, and promiscuity and deceit the next.

His recollection of every detail of his relationship with Gomez included dates and times of their outings, when she left messages for him on his answering machine and their sex life.

Ironically, while he goes to great lengths to describe every mundane encounter with her, only one page is dedicated to the murder of which he claims to remember very little.

"Nothing mattered, life was not worth preserving if I did not have you. You were my life, you had given me new life, had enabled me to live in a way that nobody else could offer me. Your love, our love, was the only thing I cherished, the only thing I wanted," he wrote. "I don't remember anything else, dear Gloria. Only returning to my senses, looking down, seeing me there on top of you, the knife plunged deep into your throat, and blood everywhere, you crying out, why Bill why, and uttering those final words"

Coday was featured on the program, America's Most Wanted, but was apprehended New York at the home of his ex-wife, Tooska Amiri. One of Amiri's friends contacted police and he was apprehended on Oct. 15, 1997. At the time of his arrest, Coday handed over to police a bag of his belongings that included "Crepusculo."

Once at the police station, Coday wrote a four-page statement discussing what he says happened the afternoon of the murder. In this confession, he explains that after Gomez expressed concern for his health he told her that he planned to leave on a plane to kill himself because he couldn't go on living without her. At this point, Coday writes that Gomez told him that he had idolized her, had over-idealized the relationship, and that she never loved him the way he thought.

History Repeats Itself

This isn't the first time that Coday has been charged with murder. In Germany, Coday pleaded insanity to the 1978 murder of his ex-girlfriend, Lisa Hullinger. In a case similar to the Gomez murder, Coday lured the 19-year-old to his residence and bludgeoned her with a hammer. Hullinger lay in a coma for 13 days before she died. Coday was convicted of the German equivalent of manslaughter and served close to 18 months in a German prison before being released and returning to America.

Lisa Hullinger met Coday when the two were part of a high school student exchange program in Germany. Upon their return to the States, the couple continued to date through college. Hullinger, then a student at Miami University, and Coday, who was attending DePaul University, signed up for another trip to Germany together.

Lisa loved Coday and even thought they might eventually marry. But, according to Lisa's parents, Coday became very possessive of her as their relationship progressed, and she consequently broke off the relationship before they left for Germany. Although Lisa thought it might be awkward seeing Bill in Germany, she didn't foresee any major problems.

In Germany, however, Coday relentlessly pursued her. On September 12, 1978, more than six months after she broke up with him, Coday pressed Lisa to come over to his place of residence where he beat her to death with a hammer after she told him that she had met someone else.

Hullinger's murder, however, is something that the jury deciding Coday's most recent murder case would not hear about. The defense won an early victory when the court upheld their motion to exclude testimony that made reference to the 1978 murder of Lisa Hullinger.

The court also granted the defense's motion to redact certain words from Crepusculo and Coday's confession that made reference to Lisa Hullinger's murder. For example, in Coday's confession he writes that after killing Gloria he cries out, "Oh no, not Gloria, not this again, not this demon." The word again and a couple other references to a previous murder were struck from the record and not presented to the jury.

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