Opening statements begin in resentencing trial for 1995 ‘Pain & Gain' murders

Nearly 30 years after the killing of a couple in South Florida that was so grisly and bizarre it later inspired a Hollywood movie, two of the men charged in the case were back in a Miami-Dade courtroom.

Daniel Lugo and Noel Doorbal were sentenced to death in the late 1990s in the killings of Golden Beach couple Kriztina Furton and Frank Griga, who were injected with horse tranquilizers, murdered, dismembered and put into barrels in 1995.

"What did it look like when they put a hood over (Kriztina's) heads as she is screaming for Frank, and then they injected her with enough horse tranquilizer to kill a horse," prosecutor Scott Warfman said in court Monday.

The victims' torsos were stuffed in barrels, and other body parts were found in buckets across Broward County.

"Without his head hands and his feet – (Kriztina), also in an oil barrel, was 5’5, about 40 pounds without her head, her hands, and her feet," Warfman said.

The pair were part of the misfit crew of muscle men that became known in the '90s as the Sun Gym Gang. The name is taken from the Miami Lakes area gym they used as home base.

The murders, along with the kidnapping, torture and attempted murder of another man, inspired the 2013 film "Pain & Gain," directed by Michael Bay and starring Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

Lugo, the alleged ringleader, was played by Wahlberg, while Doorbal was played by Anthony Mackie. Johnson's character was based on several Sun Gym Gang members.

Although Lugo and Doorbal were given a death sentence, their sentences were thrown out, and now jurors must decide whether they'll receive life in prison or the death sentence again.

Opening statements began Monday in the resentencing, and the penalty phase trial is complex. Unlike other cases involving co-defendants, both Lugo and Doorbal have their own jury to judge them, so there are two juries in the courtroom.