Florida man convicted of killing 2 women whose bodies were found in a pond is set to be executed

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of killing two women whose bodies were found in a rural pond is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday evening

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of killing two women whose bodies were found in a rural pond is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday evening.

Samuel Lee Smithers, 72, is set to receive a lethal injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke under a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. It would be Florida’s 14th death sentence carried out in 2025, further extending the state record for executions in a single year.

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.

According to court records, 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 (11-hectare) property that included three ponds in rural Plant City, Florida.