Jack and Dolly Nestor are pictured.
Dolly and Jack Nestor are pictured.
An owl sculpture on display in Jack Nestor's granddaughter's home is one of his many artworks.
Victor Tony Jones is pictured in prison.
Jack and Dolly Nestor (middle and right) are pictured with their then-daughter-in-law, Emily Nestor (left).

It's been 35 years since Jack and Dolly Nestor were murdered by a man they were trying to help. But the high school sweethearts are very much alive to their family.

Dolly Nestor's pasta sauce, today made lovingly by her granddaughter, is still feeding the descendants of the part-Italian matriarch. And Jack Nestor's towering metal sculptures are still on display in his daughter's and grandchildren's homes.

"I think of him every day," Shaina Dolly Nestor, 54, said of her grandfather and his giant owl sculpture in her Chicago home. "Every single person that walks in my house says, 'Oh my God, that’s amazing.' He's very alive and well . . . We talk about them often."

The grandparents have been on the family's minds even more lately as the Nestors' killer, Victor Tony Jones, is set to be executed in Florida on Tuesday, Sept. 30, for stabbing them to death in their Miami shop during a robbery. That will make him the 13th inmate to be executed in the state this year − a record − and the 34th in the nation, a 10-year high.

The wait for justice has been so long for the Nestor family, not everyone is alive to see it. The couple's only son, a 9/11 hero named Michael Nestor, died in 2020 from brain cancer believed to be related to inhaling carcinogens in the Ground Zero dust, said his daughter, Shaina Nestor.

Because Michael can't be there, and because the loss of the family patriarch and matriarch was so profound, many of the surviving relatives plan to attend Jones' execution.

Here's what you need to know about the Nestors, the crime and what their family hopes to walk away with after Jones breathes his last breaths.

Who were Jack and Dolly Nestor?

Jack and Dolly Nestor, whose legal names were Jacob and Matilda, both came from humble beginnings in Brooklyn, New York, and were high school sweethearts, according to their daughter, Irene Fisher.

They raised two children in Brooklyn and eventually became grandparents of four before they escaped the winter weather and moved south to Florida.

By then, the couple had experienced a good deal of success. Jack was a sculptor and an inventor who found purpose in coming up with medical devices.

In a Miami Herald article 10 years before his death, Jack described being inspired by the Sistine Chapel when he visited Vatican City during WWII, when he was stationed in Europe for five years for the U.S. Army ending in 1946. "I said to myself, I gotta try it."

On top of creating art that included a sculpture displayed in Miami's federal building, Nestor accumulated at least two dozen patents for medical devices over the years. Among them: a device to transplant leg arteries, another to chisel the middle bone of a nose, a special knife used in hair transplants and a prosthetic aimed at overcoming male impotence, according to the Herald.

His wife Dolly was tickled at her husband's knack for tinkering, which extended to their home, calling his plumbing work "a real sculpture," according to the paper.

"Not a weld seam showing," she beamed, according to the Herald. "He built a rose quartz wall in the house and erected a miniature city of copper around it."

No matter what purpose one of his creations served, Nestor told the Herald that the work gratified him.

"In any case you're making things that never existed," Nestor said. "The most important thing is you're creating. It's my way of giving birth to something that never existed."

He continued: "I love it."

What happened to Jack and Dolly Nestor?

On Dec. 19, 1990, less than a week before Christmas, a man the Nestors had hired for the day attacked the couple at their shop in Miami, where he built his creations and she acted as secretary. Victor Tony Jones first struck out at Dolly, stabbing her in the neck and leaving her to die when she declined to pay him because he wasn't finished with a job, according to court records, which indicated drugs played a significant factor.

Jones then tracked down Jack Nestor, who was able to shoot Jones in the forehead before he died of a stab wound to his heart. Jack was 67 and Dolly was 66.

A UPS driver came upon the crime scene and called police, who found the Nestors dead and Jones suffering from the gunshot wound. He had the couple's wallets, keys and other belongings in his pockets, court records say.

"At the hospital, Jones admitted to a nurse that he killed the couple because they owed him money," one court filing says.

The Nestors' daughter, Irene Fisher, told USA TODAY that her dad was in the habit of hiring someone in need for day jobs.

"My father was very well known in the neighborhood if somebody needed help with something," she said. "He'd give people jobs out of the kindness of his heart."

Jones' attorneys have argued that he had too low of an IQ to understand that his actions were wrong.

How did the murders impact Jack and Dolly Nestor's family?

Shaina Nestor said that her family was "shellshocked" by the murders, particularly her father, Michael Nestor, who was in law enforcement and became a hero on Sept. 11, 2001, when he directed an upper floor of the North Tower of World Trade Center to evacuate and carried a physically challenged woman most of the way out of the building before it collapsed. A photo of Michael emerging from the tower with another man and the woman they helped is among the powerful images of hope amid the tragedy that day.

Shaina said the whole family was extremely close, spending every Christmas together and traveling between New York and Florida as much as possible.

In particular, Shaina treasures one-on-one time spent with her grandmother dishing at the hair salon and going to the theater. And she'll never forget her grandfather's sarcasm, constant jokes and megawatt smile.

Irene Fisher said the Nestors were "a spectacular mother and father" and fully supported her and her brother's dreams of making it to Broadway. (They both made it, her as a swing dancer and him as a dancer in productions including "West Side Story.")

"Our parents insisted that we follow our dreams. Whatever our dreams were, they were there to help us," she said. "They were extraordinary ... It was a very, very happy home."

Why are Jack and Dolly's family witnessing execution?

Both Irene Fisher and Shaina Nestor will be among the family members witnessing the execution. They both said they have mixed emotions, partly because the crime happened more than three decades ago and justice has been delayed so long.

"It's going to finally be done," Irene Fisher said. "It shouldn’t have taken that long, and I wish my brother was alive to see it."

Shaina Nestor said that while the execution is not going to bring her grandparents back, "it is justice at the end of the day."

Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers executions for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'They were extraordinary': Florida grandparents remembered as their killer faces death

Reporting by Amanda Lee Myers, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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