An individual who brutally killed two women almost three decades ago has been put to death while serving on death row.
Samuel Lee Smithers, aged 72, received a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke after being found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. The victims, Christy Cowan and Denise Roach, were discovered in a pond in May 1996, having been severely beaten and strangled.
Smithers became the 14th person to face execution on death row in Florida this year, setting a new record for any state in the U.S. The previous highest annual execution count in Florida was eight in 2014.
During the execution, Smithers, who was restrained on a table, passed away shortly after receiving the injection, displaying heavy breathing and slight convulsions. He chose not to make any final statements despite the presence of a full witness gallery at the prison.
Florida authorities are scheduled to conduct two more executions later this month and the following month. It took almost thirty years for Smithers to be executed after his conviction for double murder in 1999.
The court learned that Smithers had met the victims separately in May 1996 at a motel in Tampa, Florida, where he paid them for sexual services. At the time, he was working in landscape maintenance on a property in rural Plant City, Florida, which included several ponds.
On May 28, 1996, the property owner, who knew Smithers from church where he served as a Baptist deacon, discovered him cleaning an axe in the garage. Smithers claimed he was using it to trim tree limbs. The property owner observed blood in the garage, which Smithers attributed to a small animal being killed by someone else, according to court records.
After contacting law enforcement, a sheriff’s deputy visited the property and noticed traces leading to one of the ponds, where the bodies of the victims were found. Both women had been beaten, strangled, and left in the pond.
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Smithers, who argued that his age should exempt him from execution under the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment in the U.S. Constitution. Despite being one of the oldest individuals executed in Florida, the court ruled that age does not categorically prevent the imposition of the death penalty.
The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a final appeal without comment on Tuesday afternoon. Prior to this, 35 men had been executed by court order in the U.S. this year.
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