STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of murdering two women in 1996, whose bodies were found in a rural pond, was executed on Tuesday evening, marking Florida’s 14th execution this year, setting a new record.
Samuel Lee Smithers, aged 72, was pronounced deceased at 6:15 p.m. following a lethal injection administered at Florida State Prison near Starke. Smithers was found guilty of two first-degree murders in 1999 and sentenced to death.
The procedure commenced as the curtain in the death chamber was raised at the precise execution time of 6:00 p.m., showing Smithers already secured to a table with an IV in his arm. When asked if he wished to make a final statement, he replied, “No sir.”
The administration of the lethal drugs started almost at once. Initially, Smithers breathed heavily and experienced minor convulsions, which gradually ceased. A warden shook him, calling his name, but received no response.
As time advanced, his skin began to turn gray. At 6:14 p.m., a medical professional entered the chamber to assess his vital signs and declared Smithers dead a minute later. Department of Corrections spokesperson Ted Veerman later reported that the execution proceeded without issues.
This execution added to Florida’s record number of executions in a single year, with further plans to conduct two more executions in the upcoming month under orders signed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, the highest previous annual total of Florida executions was eight in 2014. Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, followed by Texas with five.
Smithers was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1999.
His was one of two executions Tuesday evening in the U.S. Lance Shockley, 48, was executed in Missouri for the fatal shooting of a state trooper more than 20 years ago.
Court records indicate Smithers met Christy Cowan and Denise Roach on different dates in May 1996 at a Tampa motel to pay them for sex. At the time, he was doing landscape maintenance on a 27-acre (11-hectare) property that included three ponds in rural Plant City, Florida.
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 ever executed in Florida, the justices ruled that the elderly are not categorically exempt from the death penalty. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a final appeal without comment Tuesday evening.
With Tuesday’s executions, a total of 37 men had died by court-ordered execution to date this year in the U.S.
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.
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