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Robert Sullivan Florida Execution

Robert Sullivan was executed by the State of Florida for the murder of a restaurant manager. According to court documents Robert Sullivan and Reid McLaughlin would abduct the victim from a restaurant and brought to a remote location where he was fatally shot. Robert Sullivan would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Robert Sullivan was executed by way of the electric chair on November 30, 1983

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Robert Sullivan, who spent more than 10 years on Florida’s death row for conviction of killing the night manager of a Howard Johnson’s restaurant, yesterday walked sobbing but unassisted to the state’s electric chair and was executed with a 2-minute surge of 2,000 volts.

His head and lower right leg shaved, Sullivan sat in the three-legged oaken chair and read passages of the 62nd Psalm scribbled on a legal pad: “And in God alone is my soul at rest, because my hope comes from within,” authorities at Florida State Prison at Starke said.

“To all my peers on death row, despite what is about to happen to me, do not quit,” Sullivan said, according to prison spokesman Vernon Bradford. “I plead and encourage a continued effort to end this monster called capital punishment.”

As two dozen witnesses watched, Sullivan’s head was covered with a black hood. At 10:10 a.m., Florida Gov. Robert Graham told prison Superintendent Richard Dugger by telephone, “There are no stays. God save us all,” according to Patrick Riordan, a spokesman for the governor

One minute later, a black-hooded executioner unleashed the massive jolt of electricity. Sullivan was pronouned dead at 10:16 a.m.

A former Howard Johnson’s restaurant manager, Sullivan, 36, became the ninth murderer in the United States to be executed since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976. As the inmate with the longest tenure on death row in the nation, Sullivan was also the 199th convict to die since 1924 in Florida’s electric chair.

The adopted son of a Harvard-educated surgeon, the 6-foot, 280-pound Sullivan battled for a legal reprieve until moments before his death, when the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to delay it further.

On Tuesday night, the Supreme Court, by 7 to 2, also declined to spare Sullivan, noting in an unsigned opinion that “there must come an end to the process of consideration and reconsideration.” That decision is believed to be another sign that a majority on the high court has grown impatient with the protracted legal maneuvers ensnarling capital punishment cases

Despite a plea for mercy from Pope John Paul II, Graham also refused to spare the condemned man.

About 30 death penalty protesters kept a vigil outside the penitentiary walls yesterday morning, according to the Associated Press. They were flanked by several people supporting the execution. Groups opposing capital punishment were quick to deplore the execution of Sullivan, although none of those contacted predicted an accelerated pace as a result of yesterday’s electrocution. As of Oct. 20, according to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, there were 1,268 persons on death row in the United States.

“The death penalty is supposed to be reserved for the very worst of the cases,” Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee in Atlanta, said. “But of the offenders, Sullivan is probably among the least deserving of execution. It’s a classic example of the arbitrariness of the system.

Sullivan maintained his innocence until the end, claiming in an interview with the Florida Times-Union that he had been singled out because the state wanted to prove it could execute “middle-class white boys.”

Last week, Roman Catholic Bishop John J. Snyder told the same newspaper that a Boston man had confessed to his priest that he was with Sullivan in a Miami gay bar at the time of the murder for which Sullivan was convicted. But the church was unable to provide further details about the witness because revealing details from the confessional is grounds for excommunication.

A college dropout who became manager of the Howard Johnson’s restaurant in Homestead, Fla., Sullivan was sentenced to five years probation in August, 1972, for stealing $6,200 from his employer.

With a friend, Reid McClaughlin, Sullivan returned to the restaurant on the night of April 8, 1973, and killed night manager Donald Schmidt with a shotgun after robbing him, according to David Skipper, spokesman for the Florida Department of Corrections. Schmidt’s watch and credit cards were found on Sullivan when he was arrested

McClaughlin, who agreed to testify for the state against Sullivan, was sentenced to life imprisonment and was paroled in 1981, Skipper said. Sullivan was sentenced to die, and entered death row at Starke on Nov. 14, 1973. He came within 38 hours of execution in 1979 before a stay was issued, and yesterday’s electrocution followed a 27-hour delay caused by legal skirmishing.

Defense attorneys argued unsuccessfully in their appeals that his trial lawyers failed to investigate Sullivan’s alibi, that the system of administering a death penalty discriminates against those convicted of killing whites, and that Sullivan’s sentence was not compared with those handed down in other murder cases.

At 6 a.m. yesterday, Sullivan was served a last meal of steak, french fries, milk and fresh strawberries

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/12/01/sullivan-executed-in-florida-electric-chair/9baf5d39-bf71-44b1-ad07-271f443d4a0b/

John Spenkelink Florida Execution

John Spenkelink was executed by the State of Florida for a murder committed during a robbery. According to court documents John Spenkelink had escaped from a prison in California when he made his way to Florida. John Spenkelink would get into an argument with the victim. left and came back with a gun which he used to shoot the victim in the back killing him. John Spenkelink would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. John Spenkelink would be executed by electric chair on May 25, 1979

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The state of Florida trussed. John Arthur Spenkelink immobile in the electric chair this Morning, dropped a black leather mask over his face and electrocuted him.

“He simply looked at us and he looked terrified,” said Kris Rebillot, a reporter who wag one of 32 persons who watched through a window from an adjoining room. “It was just a wide, wide, wide stare.”

The execution was carried out a few hours after the last plea in an extended legal battle. It was the first execution in the United States since Gary Mark Gilmore faced a Utah firing squad voluntarily on Jan. 16, 1977, and the first since 1967 in which the condemned person was put to death against his will.

John Spenkelink made no final statement. The prison authorities said that had been his wish.

The prisoner was given three surges of electricity, The first, 2,500 volts, was administered at 10:12 A.M. Mr. Spenkelink jerked in the chair and one hand clenched into a fist. •

Then came the second, and the third, by two executioners in black hoods. A doctor stepped forward after the third surge, pulled up the prisoner’s T‐shirt and applied a stethoscope to Mr. Spenke1 ink’s chest..

He then checked for a pulse. Then he stepped back. He returned to the prisoner and examined him once more, and backed away again. A third time, at 10:18, he checked the prisoner for a pulse, examined Mr. Spenkelink’s eyes with pocket pen‐flashlight, and nodded to the warden that the prisoner was dead.

John Spenkelink, who was 30 years old, was convicted in 1973 of the killing of fellow drifter, Joseph Syzmankiewicz, 95.

Reporters here today were told by the Rev. Tom Feamster, an Episcopal priest who was the last to speak with Mr. Spenkelink, that the condemned man had told him, “Man is what he chooses to be; he chooses that for himself.”

“But the last thing that he said to me was that he loved me,” the burly, 6‐foot‐6 minister said, “and the last thing I said to him was that I loved him.”

He also quoted Mr. Spenkelink as saying, “If this comes down, I hope that some good will come of it.” Between 6 and 6:30 A.M. Mr. Spenkelink spoke with his mother, Lois, who had ‘made several attempts personally to gain a stay or clemency for her son.

The 1 A.M. execution hour was set early today after the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans dissolved a stay granted earlier 1 by a Federal district judge.

That stay, along with another granted separately by Justice Thurgood Marshall 1 of the Supreme Court, and subsequently dissolved by the full Court, reprieved Mr. Spenkelink from his original execution date, 7 A.M. Monday. Today attorneys for Mr. Spenkelink tried again to gain another stay.

Ramsey Clark, the former Attorney General, had taken a role in the case. According to Henry Schwartzschild, project director of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the organizations that had fought to save Mr. Spenkelink, Mr. Clark went by car from New York to Washington after he was unable to charter an airplane to deliver by hand a‐petition to the Supreme Court for a renewed stay.

Mr. Clark i arriving shortly before A.M., handed the petition to the clerk of the court, but a hurried poll of eight of the nine Justices rejected a new stay by vote of 6 to 2, with Justice Harry A. Blackmun not participating. Justices Marshall and William J. Brennan Jr. reportedly favored a new stay.

The execution was, by custom, delayed a few mimites past the scheduled hour, lest word of a reprieve come too late. It did not come at all.

Outside the prison, opponents of the death penalty, some of whom had been here since Monday, grew restive, some hysterical, as the time of execution came and passed. Some prayed; some wept; others screamed epithets and obscenities as a hearse left the prison just before 11 A.M. with the body. Earlier, they had chanted, “Government murder! Government murder!”

State Representative Andy Johnson of Jacksonville was among those who witnessed the execution today. Yesterday he introduced a bill to end executions in Florida.

Mr. Johnson termed the execution “barbaric” and “sickening,” telling reporters assembled under a blazing sun in

a cow pasture in front of the prison corn. plex: “We saw a man Sizzle today, and if you watched close, you could see him sizzle again, and sizzle again.” Minutes later, he was confronted by an unidentified man who shouted that his son had been murdered and death was the only appropriate penalty. .

Proponents of the death penalty had also encamped at the prison, some in a mobile home with a silver coffin mounted on its top and a placard urging, “Go, Sparky” — the three‐legged electric chairhere.

Those who witnessed the execution included a‐pool of nine ‘persons representing news‐gathering organizations. None spoke as graphically as Mr. Johnson had of what they had seen. “It was quicker than I expected, and it was less grvesome,” said Kris Kebillot, the 28‐year‐old television reporter. Unlike other such cases, the question of televising the Spenkelink execution was never raised.

H.G. Davis, an editorial writer for The Gainesville Sun, said he was not prepared for the sudden sight of Mr. Spinkelink behind the ‘glass window that gave on the death chamber.

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/05/26/archives/florida-executes-killer-as-plea-fails-spenkelink-electrocuted-is.html

Manuel Pardo Jr Florida Execution

Manuel Pardo Jr was executed by the State of Florida for nine murders. Manuel Pardo Jr was a former police officer who over a three month period would murder six men and three women. Manuel Pardo Jr would later deny the murders of the three women and believed he was doing the right thing by murdering the six men who according to him were all involved in the drug trade. Manuel Pardo Jr would be executed by lethal injection on December 11, 2012

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A former police officer who murdered nine people during a 1986 crime spree was executed Tuesday after his attorneys’ last-minute appeals were rejected.

Manuel Pardo, 56, was pronounced dead at Florida State Prison at 7:47 p.m., about 16 minutes after the lethal injection process began. His attorneys had tried to block the execution by arguing that he was mentally ill, but federal courts declined to intercede.

Reporters could not hear his final statement because of an apparent malfunction in the death chamber’s sound system. A white sheet had been pulled up to his chin and IV lines ran into his left arm. He blinked several times, his eyes moved back and forth and he took several deep breaths. Over the next several minutes the color drained from his face before he was pronounced dead.

Prison officials said his final words were, “Airborne forever. I love you, Michi baby,” referring to his daughter.

Manuel Pardo also wrote a final statement that was distributed to the media, in which he claimed that he never killed any women, but “accepted full responsibility for killing six men.

“I never harmed those 3 women or any female. I took the blame as I knew I was doomed and it made no difference to me, at this time, having 6 or 9 death sentences,” he wrote on Dec. 11, hours before his execution. “I don’t want this hanging over my head, especially these last few minutes of life, because my war was against men who were trafficing (sic) in narcotics and no one else!”

Officials said most of Pardo’s victims were involved with drugs. Pardo contended that he was doing the world a favor by killing them over three-month period in early 1986.

“I am a soldier, I accomplished my mission and I humbly ask you to give me the glory of ending my life and not send me to spend the rest of my days in state prison,” Pardo told jurors at his 1988 trial.

Frank Judd, the nephew of victim Fara Quintero read a statement following the execution, which was witnessed by fewer than 10 family members of the victims.

Judd thanked the state of Florida for bringing closure to his family and said the pain he and his relatives feel about the murder of Quintero “continues to this day.”

“Personally, I don’t feel that what happened today was enough justice,” he said, adding that Pardo was a “disturbed soul.”

Pardo’s final letter apologized to his family for the “pain and grief” he caused.

“You all are so loving and wonderful, not deserving of this nightmare,” he wrote. He asked his family to please not suffer and to “be strong.” He mentioned his daughter Michi in the written statement.

“Remember Michi you are Airborne and hardcore…No tears!” he wrote.

Manuel Pardo also touched on his love of sports, devoting one of three paragraphs in his letter to baseball, soccer and bullfighting.

“On a lighter note, as a New Yorker and loyal fan, I was happy to see my Yankees and Giants win so many championships during my lifetime,” Pardo wrote.

He said it was a lifelong dream to see Spain win the World Cup and urged the Spanish government to never stop bullfights because they are “a part of our culture and heritage.”

“And if they do, I’m glad I won’t be alive to see such a travesty!”

Ann Howard, a spokeswoman for Florida’s Department of Corrections, said that Pardo visited with eight people Tuesday. He also met with the prison chaplain and a Roman Catholic bishop.

Manuel Pardo ate a last meal of rice, red beans, roasted pork, plantains, avocado, tomatoes and olive oil. For dessert, he ate pumpkin pie and drank egg nog and Cuban Coffee. Under Department of Corrections rules, the meal’s ingredients have to cost $40 or less, be available locally and made in the prison kitchen.

Manuel Pardo was dubbed the “Death Row Romeo” after he corresponded with dozens of women and persuaded many to send him money.

The former Boy Scout and Navy veteran began his law enforcement career in the 1970s with the Florida Highway Patrol, graduating at the top of his class at the academy. But he was fired from that agency in 1979 for falsifying traffic tickets. He was soon hired by the police department in Sweetwater, a small city in Miami-Dade County.

In 1981, Pardo was one of four Sweetwater officers charged with brutality, but the cases were dismissed.

He was fired four years later after he flew to the Bahamas to testify at the trial of a Sweetwater colleague who was accused of drug smuggling. Pardo lied, telling the court they were international undercover agents.

Then over a 92-day period in early 1986, Pardo committed a series of robberies, killing six men and three women. He took photos of the victims and recounted some details in his diary, which was found along with newspaper clippings about the murders. Pardo was linked to the killings after using credit cards stolen from the victims.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-cop-manuel-pardo-executed-in-fla-for-9-murders/

David Gore Florida Execution

David Gore was executed by the State of Florida for a series of murders. According to court documents David Gore was a serial killer who along with his cousin Fred Waterfield was convicted of six murders around Florida. Fred Waterfield would receive a life sentenced and David Gore would be sentenced to death. David Gore would be executed by lethal injection on April 12, 2012

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A Florida inmate was put to death Thursday, nearly three decades after the murder of 17-year-old Lynn Elliott, whose failed escape attempt ended a string of rapes and slayings that shook the quiet coastal town of Vero Beach.

David Alan Gore, 58, was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. Thursday after receiving an injection at the Florida State Prison, officials said.

Asked if he had a final statement, Gore said as he lay strapped to a gurney: “Yes, I do.”

“I want to say to the Elliott family, I am sorry for the death of your daughter. I am not the man I was back then, 28 years ago. I am a Christian. Christ lives within me. I hope you all can find peace today,” Gore said.

Making no eye contact with the family, he added that he hoped the family could “find it in their hearts to forgive me” and concluded: “I don’t fear death.”

Family members of the victim watched as the drugs began flowing but made no immediate statement as they left after the execution was carried out.

In all, Gore killed four teenage girls and two women, authorities say. Elliott’s murder was the only one for which he was sentenced to death.

Elliott’s parents had said as Thursday’s execution time approached that this was the day they have been waiting for — a date many thought should have come years ago, considering there was no doubt he committed the crimes and he had shown no remorse for the killings.

“For us it’s been a nightmare, because I just turned 81. I was beginning to think that I might die before he went,” said Carl Elliott, the girl’s father, recently.

Jeanne Elliott almost did die. About two years ago she was in a coma, and doctors told her son to begin making funeral arrangements. She suddenly began recovering, and she said she believes it was because of her wish to see the 58-year-old Gore die first.

Gore met with a spiritual adviser earlier Thursday and was visited by his mother and an ex-wife. He was calm and cooperative, said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Ann Howard.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a final appeal less than two hours before the scheduled execution.

On July 26, 1983, Gore and his cousin Fred Waterfield picked up Lynn Elliott and her 14-year-old friend hitchhiking to Wabasso Beach north of Vero Beach. They took them at gunpoint to Gore’s parents’ house. Waterfield left and Gore raped the girls, who were bound in separate rooms.

Elliott freed her legs and ran naked from the house, hands still tied behind her back. Gore, also naked, chased her, dragged her back toward the house as she kicked and screamed and then shot her twice in the head. Police were called after a boy witnessed the murder. Gore was caught and the other girl rescued.

After his arrest, Gore admitted to killing three other girls and two women and led authorities to the bodies of four of the victims. He was sentenced to life in prison for the other murders.

Gore managed to stretch out his appeals and remain on death row 28 years after he was condemned. Gov. Rick Scott signed his death warrant after the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers asked him about the case.

“I’ve been waiting for this day for years. I would’ve saved the state a lot of money if they let me. I’d do it myself and have no qualms about it,” said Mike Daley, whose wife, Judy Kay Daley was killed by Gore in July 1981.

Daley was Gore’s third victim. He disabled her car while she was alone on a secluded beach, then waited for her to try to start it. When she couldn’t, he offered her a ride, raped her, killed her, then chopped up her body.

Five months earlier, Gore kidnapped, raped and murdered Ying Hua Ling, 17, and her mother, Hsiang Huang Ling, 48. Their bodies were stuffed in steel drums and buried in an orange grove where he worked.

Gore was arrested in July 1981 after being found in the back seat of a woman’s car. He was shirtless and had a cocktail in one hand and a gun in the other. He also had handcuffs, rope and a police scanner. Gore was sentenced to five years in prison, though he was paroled and served only about a year-and-a-half. He soon began killing again.

In May 1983, Gore and Waterfield picked up two 14-year-old hitchhikers, Barbara Ann Byer and Angelica LaVallee. The girls were raped, killed and dismembered. While Gore says Waterfield was his partner throughout the killing spree, this was the only case that earned Waterfield a murder conviction. He is serving back-to-back life sentences.

https://www.deseret.com/2012/4/12/20406578/florida-serial-killer-gore-executed

Robert Waterhouse Florida Execution

Robert Waterhouse was executed by the State of Florida for the sexual assault and murder of a woman in 1980. According to court documents Robert Waterhouse would beat, sexually assault and murder 29-year-old Deborah Kammerer who was last seen leaving a bar with Waterhouse. Robert Waterhouse after spending 31 years of Florida death row would be executed by lethal injection on February 16, 2012

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A man who raped a 29-year-old mother and left her to drown in the surf of Tampa Bay more than three decades ago has been executed after spending 31 years on death row.

Sixty-five-year-old Robert Brian Waterhouse died by lethal injection at 8:22 p.m. Wednesday at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had been on death row longer than any inmate previously executed in Florida. The execution was delayed two hours because of a last-minute appeal.

Waterhouse was convicted in 1980 of killing 29-year-old Deborah Kammerer of St. Petersburg, whose body was found in the tidal flats of Tampa Bay. She’d been beaten, raped and dragged into the surf. The two had been seen leaving a bar together, and blood, hair and fibers found in his car linked Waterhouse to the slaying.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-inmate-robert-brian-waterhouse-executed-after-31-years-on-death-row/