A man convicted of killing two women whose bodies were found in a rural Hillsborough County pond in 1996 was put to death Tuesday evening in a record 14th execution this year in Florida.
Samuel Lee Smithers, 72, was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, the office of Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
Smithers was convicted of the first-degree murders of Christy Cowan and Denise Roach, and leaving their bodies in a Plant City pond in 1996. He was sentenced to death in 1999.
When asked if he had a final statement, Smithers said, “No, sir,” according to DeSantis spokesman Alex Lanfranconi. He said there were no complications.
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Smithers’ death extended Florida's record for executions in a year, with the state planning to carry out two more this month and next. Since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, the highest previous annual total was eight in 2014.
Court records indicate Smithers met Cowan and Roach on different dates in May 1996 at an east Tampa motel to pay them for sex. At the time, he was doing landscape maintenance on a secluded 27-acre property that included three ponds in Plant City.
On May 28, 1996, the property owner — who had met Smithers in church where he was a Baptist deacon — stopped by to find Smithers cleaning an ax in the carport, which he claimed to be using to trim tree limbs. The property owner noticed a pool of blood in the carport, and Smithers told her that someone must have come by and killed a small animal, according to court records.
The woman contacted law enforcement, and a sheriff’s deputy met her later that day at the property. The blood had been cleaned up, but the deputy noticed drag marks leading to one of the ponds, according to court records. That’s where authorities found the bodies of Cowan and Roach. Both women had been severely beaten, strangled and left in the pond to die.
The Florida Supreme Court denied an appeal from Smithers last week. His attorneys had argued that his age should make him ineligible for execution under the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Although Smithers would be one of the oldest people executed in Florida, the justices ruled that the elderly are not categorically exempt from the death penalty.
On Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a late appeal without comment.
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Norman Mearle Grim Jr., 65, is scheduled for Florida’s 15th execution on Oct. 28. He was convicted of raping and killing his neighbor, whose body was found by a fisherman near the Pensacola Bay Bridge in 1998.
Bryan Fredrick Jennings, 66, is set for Florida's 16th execution on Nov. 13. He was convicted of raping and killing a 6-year-old girl after abducting her from her central Florida home in 1979.
Florida executions are carried out with a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, the state Department of Corrections said.
Prior to Tuesday, a total of 35 men had died by court-ordered execution to date this year in the U.S. Florida has executed more people than any other state, followed by Texas with five.
His was one of two executions carried out Tuesday evening in the U.S. Lance Shockley, 48, was put to death in Missouri for fatally shooting a state trooper more than 20 years ago.
