BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) — A second man convicted of murdering someone in Bay County and sitting on death row has died this week.
Kayle Bates was executed Tuesday, but that’s not how the second man died.
The Florida Department of Corrections website now lists Matthew Caylor as deceased.
News Channel 8’s sister station News 13 confirmed Caylor committed suicide Tuesday night.
It’s unclear how Caylor committed suicide or why corrections officers were unable to prevent it.
On July 8, 2008, Caylor raped and killed 13-year-old Melinda Hinson.
Hinson and her family were living at the Value Lodge motel on West Highway 98.
She walked to Caylor’s room to bum a cigarette.
Caylor raped the girl, strangled her with a phone cord, then stuffed her body under the bed. Motel maids found the body two days later.
A local jury convicted Caylor of first-degree murder and voted 8-to-4 in favor of the death penalty.
Because the jury’s vote was not unanimous, Caylor received a new sentencing phase in 2023.
Caylor requested a judge to decide his fate rather than a jury, saying he’d promised not to put Hinson’s mother through the ordeal.
During that resentencing, prosecutors announced the mother had died.
Chief Circuit Judge Christopher Patterson heard the case and resentenced Caylor to death.
Afterward, Caylor’s attorney filed a new appeal, saying if they’d known Hinson’s mother had died, they would have requested a jury hear the case.
The appeal wound up in the State Supreme Court, where justices rejected it earlier this year.
Caylor had been on death row since 2009.
“Matthew Caylor understood he was destined to share the same unavoidable outcome as Kayle Bates. By choosing to end his own life, he spared Florida taxpayers significant expenses,” remarked State Attorney Larry Basford.
Caylor was 50 years old.
The state will perform an autopsy as part of its investigation into his suicide.
