STARKE, Fla. — A man convicted of the 1996 killings of two women whose bodies were left in a rural pond was put to death Tuesday evening in a record 14th execution in Florida this year.
Samuel Lee Smithers, 72, was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Smithers was convicted in 1999 of two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.
The curtain to the death chamber went up promptly at the scheduled 6 p.m. execution time, with Smithers already strapped to a table and an IV in his arm. When asked if he had a final statement, he responded, "No, sir."
The administration of the lethal drugs began almost immediately. Initially, Smithers' breathing was heavy and he underwent slight convulsions before all movements eventually stopped. A warden shook Smithers and shouted his name, but there was no response.
As more time passed, the man's complexion began to turn gray. A medic entered the chamber at 6:14 p.m. to check his vital signs and Smithers was declared dead a minute later. Afterward, Department of Corrections spokesman Ted Veerman said the execution was carried out without incident.
The lethal injection extended Florida's record for total executions in a single year, with the state planning to carry out two more executions later this month and next under death warrants signed by Republican Gov. 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 scheduled for Tuesday evening in the U.S. Lance Shockley, 48, was set to be executed in Missouri for fatally shooting 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 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.
On Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a final appeal without comment.
Prior to Tuesday, a total of 35 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.
