Jacob Allen Bennett, the man accused of killing three teenage boys and a young woman on Renegade Mountain in Cumberland County last fall is back in court today.  Bennett waived his right to appear at his last court date in March but is required to be there today.  In his initial appearance before a judge, Bennett stated he didn’t need a lawyer and that he was the shooter.  However, there was some controversy as to whether his confession would be admitted to the records since it would change the strategy of the prosecutors in seeking the death penalty for the murders.   Lawyers said according to Tennessee law, if a  confession is given in a murder trial they cannot ask for the death penalty, only life in prison.

Now held in a Tennessee prison awaiting his trial in a quadruple murder case, the 26-year old Bennett had a considerable criminal history in Florida when Escambia Assistant State Attorney James Parker declined a chance to extradite him.

“I’m saddened about what happened,” said Parker in a recent interview with the Pensacola News Journal. “But we don’t have a crystal ball.”

Still, Casey Cox an investigator in Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office  wonders what might have been. “If he had gone to Florida (in 2009), would it have changed the outcome? Very possibly. He had very minimal ties to Cumberland County. He had grandparents here.”

Florida Department of Law Enforcement records show that Bennett’s criminal record dates back to age 12, when he was charged with burglary in 1999. The Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office charged him with larceny and damage to property in 2001, but state records don’t indicate how those cases were resolved. Other Florida arrests during 2005 and 2006 resulted in convictions and jail time.

By 2009, Bennett had moved to Tennessee where he is currently accused as the trigger man in an apparent robbery attempt gone bad last September which resulted in the shooting deaths of four people, ages 16 to 22.

Bennett’s case underscores a common question in some criminal cases when extradition includes the expense of transporting a prisoner long distances. The estimated cost of security and transportation to return a prisoner to Florida from Tennessee, law enforcement authorities said, is about $500.

Parker said he decided the cost of returning Bennett the roughly 470 miles to Florida wasn’t worth it. “First of all, he would be looking at a low bond” set by a judge here, Parker said. Thus Bennett likely would have quickly gone free, Parker said. “The nature of the crime is part of it.”

That’s because the third-degree felony charge didn’t involve weapons or other violence. Further, even if convicted on the Florida charge, Parker added, Bennett was “probably looking at probation.”

Bennett had fled charges in Santa Rosa County that he had drained more than $1,000 from his girlfriend’s bank account. Six months after Santa Rosa officials refused the last of at least six opportunities to return Bennett, he was charged with the four murders in Tennessee.