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| Fla. Supreme Court rejects five appeals from death row |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 05/10/2004 |
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The Florida Supreme Court rejected appeals from five death row inmates last Thursday, including a drug trafficker condemned for the 1992 bombing death of a state trooper on a north Florida highway. The court also upheld death sentences for a rapist who abducted and killed an Orlando girl in 1987 and a man who went on a shooting rampage that left three people dead in Winter Garden in 1992. Florida Highway Patrol trooper Jimmy Fulford, 35, was blown apart when he opened a booby-trapped package during a routine traffic stop on Interstate 10 in February 1992. The pipe bomb, hidden in a gift-wrapped microwave oven, was intended to kill two women in Marianna because they knew too much about a drug-related murder in 1991. The death led to federal and state investigations that exposed a drug trafficking ring based in South Florida. Paul Howell, 38, was convicted of building the bomb and sentenced to death in 1995. One of the arguments made in his appeal was that his trial lawyer failed to adequately defend him by not telling the jury that Fulford violated FHP policies by opening the package. The high court disagreed. Robert Power Jr., 43, is on death row for the 1987 murder of 12-year-old Angeli Bare, whose body was found in a field near her Kissimmee home after a massive manhunt. Power is also serving four life sentences and two 125-year sentences for three other rapes in central Florida. Curtis Windom, 38, is on death row for the fatal shootings of three people in Winter Garden. Windom shot his girlfriend, Valerie Davis, in an apartment complex, ran to a nearby park and fatally shot Davis' mother, Mary Lubin, and a friend, Johnnie Lee, who owed him money. Windom also shot Kenneth Williams, who survived. In two other capital rulings Thursday, Guy Gamble and Luther Douglas lost appeals. Gamble, 32, was condemned for beating his landlord with a hammer and strangling him with a cord in 1991. Douglas, 29, was condemned for the 1999 murder of Mary Ann Hobgood, who was fatally beaten and run over. |
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