Florida executed Samuel Lee Smithers, a killer known as the “Deacon of Death,” on Tuesday evening for the 1996 murders of two women whose bodies were dumped in a pond. The execution is the 14th carried out by the state this year, continuing a record-setting pace.
Simultaneously, Missouri carried out its own execution, making for a day of dual lethal injections across the U.S.
The Florida Execution: Samuel Lee Smithers
Smithers, 72, was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. by lethal injection inside the Florida State Prison in Bradford County. He declined to give a final statement, only responding with “No, sir.”
Smithers, a Baptist deacon, met his victims—Christy Cowan and Denise Roach—on separate occasions in May 1996 outside a Tampa motel.
He lured the women to a property where he was doing landscaping work, murdered them in a carport, and dumped their bodies in a pond. The victims suffered brutal injuries, including strangulation, lacerations, and chop wounds to the head, believed to have been inflicted with an ax and a hoe.
Smithers’ death marks the 14th execution Florida has carried out this year, setting a new record for the state. Two more death row inmates are scheduled to be executed later this year.
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The Missouri Execution: Lance Shockley
On the same day and just two minutes prior, Lance Shockley, 48, was executed in Missouri after Governor Mike Kehoe denied his clemency petition. Shockley was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. local time from a lethal injection at the Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre.
Shockley was convicted of first-degree murder for the fatal shooting of Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Carl Dewayne Graham Jr. in 2005.
Prosecutors argued during the trial that Shockley murdered Graham to stop the patrolman’s investigation into a car accident months earlier that resulted in the death of Shockley’s friend.
Prosecutors alleged Shockley drove to Graham’s home, waited for him, and shot him multiple times as the trooper exited his vehicle. The prosecution’s case cited circumstantial evidence, including a red car matching the description of one Shockley borrowed being seen near the scene, and bullet fragments at an uncle’s property matching those found at the shooting.
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Shockley had maintained his innocence for 20 years. His attorneys argued the state’s case relied too heavily on circumstantial evidence and failed to conduct DNA testing on up to 16 pieces of critical evidence.
Governor Kehoe rejected Shockley’s final appeal, stating, “Mr. Shockley has received every legal protection afforded to him… and his conviction and sentence will remain for his brutal and deliberate crime.”
A key detail in Shockley’s case is that although jurors convicted him, they could not agree on a sentence of life in prison or death. Because of this deadlock, the trial court judge presiding over the case made the final decision and sentenced Shockley to death. Missouri and Indiana are the only two U.S. states where a judge can impose a death sentence when a jury deadlocks on sentencing.
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