Samuel Lee Smithers: Difference between revisions

 

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| image = Samuel Lee Smithers.jpg

| image = Samuel Lee Smithers.jpg

| caption = Mugshot of Smithers

| caption = Mugshot of Smithers

| birth_date = {{birth date|1953|1|30}}

| birth_date = {{birth date|1953|1|30}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://pubapps.fdc.myflorida.com/offenderSearch/detail.aspx?Page=Detail&DCNumber=124639&TypeSearch=IR |title=Corrections Offender Network – SMITHERS, SAMUEL L |website=[[Florida Department of Corrections]] |access-date=October 15, 2025 }}</ref>

| birth_place = [[Tennessee]], U.S.

| birth_place =

| death_date = {{death date and age|2025|10|14|1953|2|10}}

| death_date = {{death date and age|2025|10|14|1953|2|10}}

| death_place = [[Florida State Prison]], Florida, U.S.

| death_place = [[Florida State Prison]], Florida, U.S.

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== Early and adult life ==

== Early and adult life ==

Samuel Lee Smithers was born on January 30, 1953, in [[Tennessee]]. Family members described a rough childhood for him, claiming that he was dropped on his head as a baby and hit over the head with a shotgun by a robber. According to court testimony by one of his brothers, Smithers’ father was physically abusive to his mother. He also claimed that his mother was a religious woman who would whip her children in [[exorcism]]-type rituals.<ref name=”Prostitute killer”/>

Samuel Lee Smithers was born on January 30, 1953, in [[Tennessee]]. Family members described a rough childhood for him, claiming that he was dropped on his head as a baby and hit over the head with a shotgun by a robber. According to court testimony by one of his brothers, Smithers’ father was physically abusive to his mother. He also claimed that his mother was a religious woman who would whip her children in [[exorcism]]-type rituals.<ref name=”Prostitute killer”/>

Between 1973 and 1979, Smithers’ had married his wife Sharon, had a son with her, and became Deacon and custodian at the First Baptist Church in [[Plant City, Florida|Plant City]]. A year before the murders, however, Smithers resigned after being accused of plotting to lie about a woman’s community service in exchange for sexual favors.<ref name=”:0″>{{Cite web |last=Seals |first=Lindsay |last2=Roszko |first2=Annamarie |last3=Martin |first3=Kinsey |title=Samuel L. Smithers |url=https://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/psyc%20405/serial%20killers/Smithers,%20Samuel%20L.pdf |access-date=October 14, 2025 |website=Department of Psychology at [[Radford University]]}}</ref><ref name=”Tampa Bay Times”/>

Between 1973 and 1979, Smithers’ had married his wife Sharon, had a son with her, and became Deacon and custodian at the First Baptist Church in [[Plant City, Florida|Plant City]]. A year before the murders, however, Smithers resigned after being accused of plotting to lie about a woman’s community service in exchange for sexual favors.<ref name=”:0″>{{Cite web |last=Seals |first=Lindsay |last2=Roszko |first2=Annamarie |last3=Martin |first3=Kinsey |title=Samuel L. Smithers |url=https://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/psyc%20405/serial%20killers/Smithers,%20Samuel%20L.pdf |access-date=October 14, 2025 |website=Department of Psychology at [[Radford University]]}}</ref><ref name=”Tampa Bay Times”/>

Executed American convicted murderer (1953–2025)

Samuel Lee Smithers (January 30, 1953 – October 14, 2025), dubbed the Deacon of Death, was an American convicted murderer and suspected serial killer who was on Florida’s death row for the 1996 murders of two women. Smithers murdered prostitute Denise Roach on May 12, 1996, after he engaged her services at a local Tampa motel and later disposed of her body in a pond. On May 28, 1996, 16 days after the murder of Roach, Smithers killed another sex worker named Christy Cowan, and later dumped her body in the same pond where Roach’s corpse was found after his arrest. Smithers, who was named a suspect in a 1989 unsolved killing, was found guilty of first-degree murder on both counts and sentenced to death, and he was executed on October 14, 2025.

Samuel Lee Smithers was born on January 30, 1953,^[1] and grew up in Tennessee.^[2] Family members described a rough childhood for him, claiming that he was dropped on his head as a baby and hit over the head with a shotgun by a robber. According to court testimony by one of his brothers, Smithers’ father was physically abusive to his mother. He also claimed that his mother was a religious woman who would whip her children in exorcism-type rituals.^[2]

Between 1973 and 1979, Smithers’ had married his wife Sharon, had a son with her, and became Deacon and custodian at the First Baptist Church in Plant City. A year before the murders, however, Smithers resigned after being accused of plotting to lie about a woman’s community service in exchange for sexual favors.^[3][4]

At age 27, Smithers had committed arson on a church in two separate incidents. In the first incident, he had lit a church on fire with kerosene and was arrested with two other suspects. In the second incident, he started another fire in the classroom area of the same church. He later claimed to authorities that the excitement from committing the arson had given him an erection. In another incident, Smithers set a woman’s car on fire before knocking on her door and informing her that her car was ablaze. He had a fire extinguisher present with him. After being arrested, he confessed to all 3 fires, stating that he was unsure of his motive but he felt like a hero.^[3]

At the time of the murders of two women in May 1996, Smithers was a deacon at a local church in Hillsborough County, Florida, .^[4]

The first woman killed by Smithers was Denise Elaine Roach, a 24-year-old Jamaican-born prostitute.^[4] On May 12, 1996,^[5] Smithers encountered Roach at a motel in Tampa and hired her for sexual services. Afterwards, Smithers brought Roach to a rural property in Plant City, which was owned by one of his acquaintances. There, Smithers assaulted Roach and strangled her to death, after which he disposed of her body in a nearby pond.^[6] At the time of her death, Roach left behind two children, and she had past criminal records for drug abuse.^[4]

In his statement to police, Smithers claimed to have accidentally killed Roach. According to Smithers, a fight had broken out between him and Roach after he found her trespassing on the property where the murder took place. During the fight, Smithers claimed to have shoved Roach against a wall, causing a loose piece of wood to fall from a shelf and fatally strike Roach on the head.^[5]

Smithers’ second victim was Christy Elizabeth Cowan, a 31-year-old prostitute and former aspiring nurse.^[7][8] On May 28, 1996,^[5] Smithers met Cowan at a motel and paid her for sex. As he had with Roach, Smithers subsequently took her to the property in Plant City; he assaulted her there, including with an axe, before lethally strangling her and disposing of her body in the same pond as Roach.^[9] Like Roach, Cowan herself left behind two children at the time of her death, and had past criminal records for drug consumption.^[4]

Smithers claimed to police that he had encountered Cowan by the side of the road, where her car had broken down, and drove her to a nearby convenience store. There, Smithers claimed that Cowan attempted to rob him by threatening to falsely accuse him of rape. According to Smithers’ account, an altercation subsequently ensued, during which he non-fatally struck her with the axe and left her—unconscious but alive—by the side of the pond.^[5]

On May 28, 1996, the same day he murdered Christy Cowan, Samuel Smithers was arrested and charged for the killings of Cowan and Denise Roach.^[10][11] This was not Smithers’s first brush with the law, as he was previously convicted of starting church fires thrice in Tennessee in 1980 during his former occupation as a volunteer firefighter.^[12]

On that day, Marian Whitehurst, the owner of the property where Smithers killed the women, saw Smithers cleaning an axe and a pool of blood in the carport. When Whitehurst probed Smithers about the blood, Smithers claimed the blood was from an animal. Despite Smither’s answers, Whitehurst remained unsettled by the gruesome discovery and a police report was lodged thereafter, and although the pool of blood was cleaned up, the police found that there were drag marks in the grass that eventually led to a pond, where they found the body of Cowan.^[5][13] A further search in the pond also led to the discovery of a second woman’s corpse, and the woman was later identified as Denise Roach.^[14]

Based on the autopsy results, Cowan sustained multiple head wounds and skull fractures, and other injuries consistent with manual strangulation and drowning. Roach died as a result of more than ten stab wounds to her head, along with strangulation.^[15]

On June 15, 1996, Smithers officially pleaded not guilty to the murders.^[16] The prosecution announced on July 4, 1996, that they would seek the death penalty against Smithers.^[17]

On December 14, 1998, Smithers officially went to trial for the murders of Denise Roach and Christy Cowan.^[18]

During the trial, Smithers changed his statement and denied that he killed the two women. He claimed that someone else killed the women as part of an elaborate drug and blackmail scheme. Smithers testified that an unnamed man threatened to show his wife a photo of Smithers with another woman unless he agreed to use the property for illegal drug deals, and paid Smithers to help with the drug transactions. Smithers claimed he witnessed the same man fatally striking Roach with a hatchet, and he was forced to dispose of the body. Likewise, Smithers said that Cowan was killed by another person who ordered him to dispose of the body. However, Smithers’s defense was not supported by objective evidence.^[4]

On December 19, 1998, Smithers was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder by a Hillsborough County jury.^[19] The sentencing trial of Smithers was scheduled to begin in January 1999.^[20][21]

During the sentencing phase of Smithers’s trial, the defense attempted to show that Smithers had a troubled childhood, caused by alleged physical abuse inflicted by his parents, and that he was a victim of childhood abuse, religious repression, mental illness, and brain damage. Smithers’s ex-wife, with whom Smithers had a son, stated that throughout her 23-year marriage with her former husband, stated that her husband was a good father and spouse and she could not believe that her ex-husband would commit such brutal murders on the women.^[2][22]

On January 25, 1999, the jury unanimously voted for Smithers to receive the death penalty for both killings.^[23][24] Prior to Smithers’s sentencing, Christy Cowan’s father stated that he did not wish to see Smithers get the death penalty and hoped that he would spend the rest of his life in prison, and used his imprisonment to repent and help other inmates to reform.^[25]

On June 25, 1999, Smithers was sentenced to death by Circuit Judge William Fuente for both the murders of Cowan and Roach, whose deaths were cited to be “extremely torturous” by the judge during sentencing.^[26][27][28]

In 2014, 18 years after Samuel Smithers killed both Denise Roach and Christy Cowan, police investigators uncovered that Smithers was likely the real culprit behind the 1989 unsolved murder of Marcelle Delano. Delano, who was also working as a prostitute, was found murdered on November 27, 1989, and her body was located not far from where Smithers disposed of the corpses of Cowan and Roach. Due to the fact that Delano’s killing shared similar characteristics as those of Cowan and Roach, Smithers was ultimately named the prime suspect in the case, even though he denied any involvement in Delano’s death.^[29][30][31]

Smithers appealed his death sentence to the Florida Supreme Court twice. His first attempt was on May 16, 2002 and was rejected.^[32] The second, on July 9, 2009, was dismissed.^[5][33] His appeal for post-conviction relief on March 29, 2018 was similarly denied.^[34]

On September 13, 2025, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant for Smithers, whose death sentence was scheduled to be carried out on October 14, 2025.^[35][36]

In a final bid to commute Smithers’s death sentence, Smithers’s lawyers filed an appeal to the courts of Florida, submitting that their client was too old to be executed at the age of 72, and this would amount to “cruel and unusual punishment”. However, Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Michelle Sisco rejected the appeal on September 26, 2025.^[37] Subsequently, on October 8, 2025, the Florida Supreme Court rejected the appeal on the grounds that no precedent cases had specifically held that the elderly are categorically exempt from execution.^[38][39][40] A final appeal was later lodged to the U.S. Supreme Court and was denied hours before the execution was carried out.^[41][42]

Smithers was put to death by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison on October 14, 2025, at 6:15pm.^[43] Prior to his execution, Smithers ate a last meal of fried chicken, fried fish, a baked potato, apple pie with vanilla ice cream and a sweet tea.^[4]

Smithers was one of seven inmates scheduled to be executed in October 2025 across the United States. Smithers was also one of four inmates slated to be executed within the same week; one of them, Missouri prisoner and convicted cop killer Lance Shockley, received the same execution date as Smithers.^[44][45] Both Smithers and Shockley were executed an hour apart of each other.^[46]

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP), an anti-death penalty group, condemned the execution, stating that Smithers was an elderly man with continued cognitive decline during his incarceration on death row and the death penalty would not provide closure to the victims’ families; however, Governor Ron DeSantis supported the execution, emphasising that Smithers was an “axe murderer” who murdered two innocent women in cold blood and his conduct deserved the death penalty.^[47]

Smithers was also the first white person to be executed for killing a black person in the United States since the 2019 execution of John William King, and only the second in the state of Florida, after Mark Asay, since capital punishment first began in the state in 1769. However, only one of Smithers’s victims (Roach) was black, while the other (Cowan) was white.^[4][48][49]

In 2016, true crime writer Fred Rosen penned a book titled Deacon of Death: Sam Smithers, the Serial Killer Next Door, which was based on the life and crimes of Smithers.^[50]