DEATH ROW – Samuel Lee Smithers (10/14/25) Florida Serial Killer | Execution scene 

DEATH ROW – Samuel Lee Smithers (10/14/25) Florida Serial Killer | Execution scene 

October 14th. Samuel Lee Smithers, Florida, 1996. By day, he was a church deacon, a man  trusted by his community. By night, he became something else entirely. He turned into the deacon of death. Smithers was a married man, a father, and a longtime member of his Baptist congregation  in Plant City.

Known for fixing things around the church, and leading Sunday  prayers, few could have imagined that behind his calm demeanor hid a violent double life. But beneath his religious facade lay something darker. after he met Christy Cowan and Denise Roach in the city of Tampa of dead. The first victim was 24year-old Denise Roach, a young mother of two who had fallen into drug addiction and sex work.

 Two weeks later, he killed 31-year-old Christy Cowan, a former honor student and aspiring nurse who had also turned to prostitution to survive. Both women were lured from local motel. They were beaten  and strangled on a secluded 27 acre property belonging to one of Smither’s church acquaintances. After killing them, he dumped their bodies in the same pond where he sometimes baptized parishioners.

>> He stayed silent most of the time. Only when it was over did he whisper, “He must be safe, too.” Then he dragged me toward the water. It was quiet there. He knelt, soaked through like a child, and began to pray. I didn’t know who he was praying to, God or himself. But in his voice, there was no forgiveness, only fear.

>> Roach’s body was the first to be found, partially submerged,  tangled in weeds beneath the still surface of the pond. When deputies drained the water, they uncovered a second corpse. Christy Kalins. >> I knew who I was. I wasn’t a saint. Never had been. People like me. We didn’t get a clean start.

 He seemed kind. Spoke softly, as if apologizing before every word. We met at night. He said he just wanted to talk, that he was lonely. I believed him after all. He was a man of the church, a deacon, someone people trusted. But then his hands changed. Not prayerful, not gentle. He held me tighter and tighter as if he wanted to squeeze the life out of me.

Along with his guilt, when I realized I wouldn’t escape, was already crying. He kept saying, “The Lord will forgive.” But somehow he wouldn’t let go. The last thing I saw was the sky and a silhouette leaning over me and a cross, a small cross hanging around his neck. After her death, investigators found deep bruises around Christy’s neck and blunt force injuries to her head.

 The autopsy revealed she had been struck with an ax, a detail Smithers later admitted in a shaky confession. He claimed she had threatened to accuse him of rape unless he gave her money. “It got out of hand,” he said. “I just lost it.” If you care about the truth, no matter what it is, consider supporting the channel.

 Your subscription and your comments help keep real stories alive. Forensic experts found fibers from Smithers’s truck and his fingerprints on both women’s clothing. The discovery was made after the property owner,  Marian Whitehurst, walked in on Smithers cleaning an ax and scrubbing blood from  the carport floor.

Marian questioned him and he calmly said it was  animal blood. Hours later, drag marks in the grass led officers to the water’s edge. In 1999, a Florida jury sentenced him to death. During his trial, his defense painted him as a man tormented by his upbringing, claiming years of abuse, religious repression,  and undiagnosed mental illness.

 But prosecutors called him manipulative and coldblooded, especially because he had once been convicted of setting fires at three  churches in Tennessee years before the murders. >> You know, I still can’t believe it’s the same man. Samuel was oh, he was the picture of decency. Always kind, always calm.

 Even when folks argued, he’d just say, “Let’s pray on it. The Lord will guide us.” And then when I heard the news, I just sat down in my kitchen. Couldn’t even move. Everybody kept asking, “Did you know? Did you see anything?” But no, nobody did. He had a wife. He was steady, reliable. He baptized children, preached forgiveness, and then my God, he killed two women.

 I I don’t know how to live with that, but I still go to church. I still do. For almost three decades, he’s lived in the shadow of that verdict, appealing, repenting, waiting. Now at 72, Smithers will become one of the oldest inmates executed in Florida since the death penalty was reinstated. His lawyers argued that his age and declining health made the lethal injection a cruel and unusual punishment.

 The courts rejected every appeal. I did terrible things. I pray for forgiveness every day. I don’t deserve mercy, but I ask for it. There are things you lose not because someone took them from you, but because you gave them up yourself. My father gave up his life. I remember how he could stand by the water for hours not saying a word.

 He loved that kind of quiet. Men his age now take their grandkids to the park, yell at the news, fix the porch light that keeps flickering. He could have been one of them. He could have been a good grandpa. He could have. But there’s nothing left for me to take from him except the lesson of what not to do. At 6:00 p.m.

 on October  14th, 2025, Samuel Lee Smithers was executed by lethal injection at the Florida  State Prison. The state used a three drug cocktail, a seditive, a paralytic, and a chemical that stopped the heart. His death marked nearly 30 years since the murders that earned him the name Deacon of Death.  Stories like this stay with you for years.

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