Florida executes 'Deacon of Death' for murders of 2 women

STARKE, Fla. — The state on Tuesday executed a Plant City man known as the “Deacon of Death” for the murders of two women in 1996.

Samuel Lee Smithers, 72, was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. Eastern time following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison, near the city of Starke in northeast Florida. He did not have a final statement.

Smithers was the 14th person executed by the state this year as Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a record number of death warrants. Smithers was also the second convicted killer from Hillsborough County put to death this year following the execution of Glen Rogers in May.

In 1998, a jury found Smithers guilty of killing Christie Elizabeth Cowan and Denise Elaine Roach, Tampa sex workers who were found dead in a pond in east Hillsborough County.

Smithers was a frequenter of “the stroll” — a 16-block stretch in central Tampa with motels, pawn shops and used car lots where prostitution was prominent.

Other sex workers told authorities they recognized him and his pickup truck.

Smithers lived with his wife and son near Plant City High School, and he worked as an electrician in Tampa. His co-workers said he was a quiet and religious “country bumpkin” who never cussed.

He’d been a deacon and a custodian at the local First Baptist Church, but he resigned a year before the murders after he was accused of offering to falsify a woman’s community service hours in exchange for sex.

Marion Whitehurst, an elementary school teacher who worked with Smithers’ wife, enlisted him to do yard work at a vacant home she owned. On May 28, 1996, Whitehurst found Smithers hosing off a long-handled ax in the home’s garage.

He pointed to a puddle of blood on the floor and promised to clean it, saying something must’ve killed a squirrel.

Whitehurst would later testify that she saw what appeared to be drag marks on the ground toward a pond behind the home. Sheriff’s deputies searched the property and found Cowan and Roach in the water.

Cowan, 31, graduated at the top of her high school class and aspired to be a nurse. But she struggled with drug and prostitution arrests.

Roach, 24, was born in Jamaica and had battled drug use since she was a teenager.

Both had children.

Smithers initially denied he had anything to do with the women’s murders. But during questioning, he confessed to hitting Cowan in the head with the ax while arguing about money. He said he dragged her to the pond by her feet and tossed her into the water while she was still breathing.

He also admitted to shoving Roach against a wall inside the home, which caused a piece of wood to fall on her face. He said he left her there and found her dead the next day.

But at trial, he changed his story, claiming without evidence that the killings were part of an elaborate drug and blackmail scheme.

Smithers said an unidentified man had threatened to show his wife a picture of Smithers and another woman unless he could use Whitehurst’s vacant property for drug deals.

Smithers said the man paid him $200 to leave the gate open for drop-offs. He said he was at the property when the man hit Roach with a hatchet.

Smithers said he was forced to dispose of her body.

“He killed her right in front of me,” Smithers testified.

Days later, he said, a different man killed Cowan. Smithers said he was paid $400 when he was told of “another accident.”

The jury took around 90 minutes to find Smithers guilty, and they unanimously recommended he be put to death.

As part of his final legal appeals, Smithers’ counsel said his execution would violate the Constitution’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment because of his age.

A doctor also evaluated Smithers for five hours on Sept. 18 and found his IQ and verbal comprehension index had worsened.

“Mr. Samuel Smithers is currently presenting with an insidious decline of mental functioning which will progress to a state of dementia,” Dr. Hyman H. Eisenstein wrote in a letter included in his appeal.

Smithers’ final plea also included 1999 testimony from John Cowan, Christie Cowan’s father.

During a hearing, Cowan said he opposed the state executing Smithers and that his daughter would have felt the same.

“I know it is not my place to decide when any person should die, and I don’t believe it’s the (state’s) place to do that either,” he said. “That kind of judgment is something that only God is qualified to make.”

Cowan said he hoped Smithers would spend the remainder of his life in prison.

“If he is actually executed after all the appeals are over, it will be for me the (worst) and most brutal possible kind of closure,” he said. “Something that will make me sick and ashamed for the rest of my life when I think of my beloved daughter, Christie.”

Author Fred Rosen wrote about Smithers’ case in a true crime book, titled “Deacon of Death: Sam Smithers, the Serial Killer Next Door.” Investigators suspect he could have killed other people, and he was a person of interest in the unsolved killing of Marcelle Delano, another Tampa sex worker.

He also admitted to starting a trio of fires at a church in Tennessee, where he was also a deacon, more than 10 years before the killings in Hillsborough.

Smithers woke up at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, a spokesperson for the state Department of Corrections said, and has “remained compliant.”

For his last meal, Smithers ate fried chicken, fried fish, a baked potato, apple pie with vanilla ice cream and a sweet tea.

He did not have any visitors, nor did he meet with a spiritual adviser, the spokesperson said.

On Sept. 30, Florida executed Victor Tony Jones, 64, who was found guilty in the 1990 killing of a married couple during a robbery in South Florida. DeSantis also signed a 15th death warrant last month for Norman Grim, 65, who was convicted of sexually assaulting and killing his neighbor in northwest Florida in 1998.

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(Times staff writer Dan Sullivan contributed to this report.)

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