Samuel Lee Smithers, known as the “Deacon of Death,” was executed by lethal injection in Florida on Tuesday. The Florida State Prison in Bradford County carried out the death row sentence in a single, calm ceremony that made the state’s 14th execution of 2025.
Smithers was 72 when his body was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. Officials noted he had already been strapped to the table and had an IV connected in the chamber when the doors opened at 6 p.m. He declined to give a final statement, answering only “No, sir” when the guard asked. For his last meal, he chose peanut butter, three packs of oatmeal, water and two sports drinks.
The case dates back to May 1996, when Smithers, a Baptist deacon, met two women—Christy Cowan and Denise Roach—outside a Tampa motel on Hillsborough Avenue, a strip known for prostitution. Smithers lured the women to a 27‑acre property where he was hired to do landscaping. While two men were in his car, Smithers forced the women into a carport, strangled them, and then dumped their bodies in a pond on the property.
The property owner—who knew Smithers from church—spotted him cleaning an axe next to a pool of blood in the carport. He called police, who found Cowan’s body floating in the pond hours after a security camera recorded her with Smithers. Divers later located Roach’s remains: a badly decomposed body that had been submerged for at least a week. Both victims suffered similar injuries, including strangulation, head wounds, and for Roach, 16 puncture marks on her skull.
Court documents reveal that Smithers used an axe and a hoe in the murders. He also admitted to dating another prostitute and regularly visiting the Tampa motel before the killings. Smithers was sentenced in 1997 to death for the double homicide.
Florida’s death row case is the state’s most active this year. After Smithers, two other inmates—Norman Mearle Grim Jr., who pleaded guilty to raping and killing a neighbor in 1998, and Bryan Fredrick Jennings, convicted of abducting, raping and murdering a 6‑year‑old girl in 1979—are scheduled for execution on Oct. 28 and Nov. 13, respectively.
The execution happened on the same day Missouri carried out a death penalty for Lance Shockley, who shot a Missouri state trooper in March 2005. This highlights how Florida’s use of capital punishment is on the rise, marking a record number of executions for the state in a single calendar year.
Source: New York Post
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