Jurors Recommend Life Sentences in Infamous ‘Pain & Gain’ Murders

More than two decades after one of South Florida’s most notorious murder cases, jurors have recommended life in prison for Daniel Lugo and Noel Doorbal, the men convicted of the brutal killings that inspired the 2013 film Pain & Gain.

Lugo and Doorbal were originally sentenced to death in the late 1990s for the 1995 kidnapping and murders of Kristina Furton and Frank Griga, a wealthy Golden Beach couple. The victims were injected with horse tranquilizers, tortured, murdered, dismembered, and placed in barrels.

Those death sentences were later overturned by the Florida Supreme Court, requiring new penalty-phase trials to determine whether the men should again face execution or receive life sentences.

After approximately 12 hours of deliberation, jurors recommended life in prison for Doorbal. Lugo’s jury reached the same recommendation after about two hours. Separate juries were empaneled for each defendant, with Lugo’s verdict initially kept confidential until both panels had concluded deliberations.

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said she respected the juries’ decisions, while emphasizing the severity of the crimes.

“I would hope that no one forgets the horrors these victims went through prior to their murders,” she said in a statement, adding that the jurors carefully weighed all the evidence and testimony presented.

Lugo and Doorbal were part of the so-called Sun Gym Gang, a group of bodybuilders-turned-criminals operating out of a Miami Lakes gym in the 1990s. Their crimes, along with the attempted murder of another man, became the basis for Pain & Gain, directed by Michael Bay and starring Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie.

The life sentence recommendations bring a measure of finality to a case that has haunted South Florida for nearly 30 years.