An individual who committed the murders of two women almost three decades ago has been put to death on death row. Samuel Lee Smithers, aged 72, received a lethal injection at Florida State Prison close to Starke after being found guilty of two first-degree murder charges. The victims, Christy Cowan and Denise Roach, were discovered severely beaten and strangled in a pond in May 1996.
Smithers became the 14th inmate executed on death row in Florida this year, setting a new record for any state in the US. The previous highest annual execution count in Florida was eight in 2014.
During the execution procedure, Smithers, restrained on a table, passed away shortly after receiving the injection, showing signs of heavy breathing and slight convulsions. Despite a full witness gallery, he chose not to make any final statements or last words.
Florida intends to conduct two more executions later this month and next. It took nearly 30 years for the state to carry out Smithers’ execution following his 1999 conviction for two counts of first-degree murder.
According to court proceedings, Smithers met the victims separately in May 1996 at a Tampa motel to exchange money for sexual services. At the time, he was working on landscaping a 27-acre property with three ponds in rural Plant City, Florida.
On May 28, 1996, the property owner, who knew Smithers from church where he served as a Baptist deacon, found him cleaning an axe in the garage, claiming he was trimming tree limbs. Blood was noticed in the garage, which Smithers attributed to an animal being killed by someone else.
The property owner contacted law enforcement, leading to the discovery of drag marks to one of the ponds where the bodies of Cowan and Roach were found, having been beaten, strangled, and left to die.
Smithers’ appeal was rejected by the Florida Supreme Court last week, where his attorneys argued that his age should render him ineligible for execution under the US Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Despite being one of the oldest individuals executed in Florida, the justices ruled that age does not automatically exempt a person from the death penalty.
The US Supreme Court also declined a final appeal from Smithers on Tuesday without providing a comment. Prior to this decision, 35 men had been executed by court order in the US this year.
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