14th of the Year: DeSantis Signs Death Warrant for Samuel Smithers, 72, Who Murdered 2 Women in 1996

In what could be Florida’s 14th execution this year, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed a death warrant for a man convicted of murdering two women in 1996 in Hillsborough County and dumping them in a pond.

Samuel Smithers, 72, is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection Oct. 14 at Florida State Prison for the murders of Denise Roach and Christy Cowan at a secluded property where he worked as a caretaker, according to documents posted Friday on the Florida Supreme Court website.

Florida has set a modern-era record this year by executing 11 inmates and is scheduled to execute David Pittman on Wednesday and Victor Tony Jones on Sept. 30. The previous record for a year was eight executions in 1984 and 2014. The modern era represents the time since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, after a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling halted it.

A 1999 sentencing order posted Friday on the Florida Supreme Court website with the Smithers death warrant said he picked up Roach and Cowan at a motel at different times in May 1996 to have “sex for money.” He drove them to the property in eastern Hillsborough County, where they were bludgeoned to death.

The sentencing order, issued by Circuit Judge William Fuente, said Smithers killed Roach after they got into a dispute in a garage at the property. The sentencing order said the murder included “smashing her face, fracturing her skull, puncturing her brain, and strangling her, causing her hyoid bone to fracture. He (Smithers) then placed her in the pond on the property. Whether she was alive or conscious at this time is not known.”

The order said Cowan was murdered one to two weeks later.

“He took her to the same secluded property, locked the gate behind him, had sex with her and then violently killed her … which included inflicting facial and head trauma with an axe and a hoe, strangling her and possibly drowning her,” Fuente wrote.

A document from Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office that was filed Friday said the owner of the property called police after seeing Smithers cleaning an axe and noticing a pool of blood.

(Editor’s note: Friday’s death warrant spelled Cowan’s first name as “Christy,” while Fuente spelled it “Cristy.”)

Friday’s death warrant came as attorneys for Pittman and Jones try to halt this month’s scheduled executions.

Pittman’s attorneys appealed Thursday to the U.S. Supreme Court, a day after the Florida Supreme Court rejected arguments that he should be spared execution because of an intellectual disability. Pittman, 63, was convicted in the 1990 murders of three family members of his estranged wife in Polk County.

Meanwhile, Jones’ attorneys Friday filed a petition and a motion for stay of execution at the Florida Supreme Court, also raising arguments about an intellectual disability. Jones, 64, was convicted in the 1990 murders of a couple in Miami-Dade County.

Florida this year executed Curtis Windom on Aug. 28; Kayle Bates on Aug. 19; Edward Zakrzewski on July 31; Michael Bell on July 15; Thomas Gudinas on June 24; Anthony Wainwright on June 10; Glen Rogers on May 15; Jeffrey Hutchinson on May 1; Michael Tanzi on April 8; Edward James on March 20; and James Ford on Feb. 13.

–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida