State: Death order delayed again

STARKE -- The state once again came close to killing Amos Lee King Jr. in its death chamber Monday. But after 25 years on death row, warrants by three governors and at least two final meals, he still lives.

King was less than an hour from a lethal injection for the brutal murder of 68-year-old Natalie "Tillie" Brady of Tarpon Springs when word came of his latest reprieve.

Gov. Jeb Bush delayed the execution pending new DNA tests on evidence from the 1977 killing of Brady, who was raped, choked, beaten, stabbed and left lying in the back doorway of her burning home.

"It is wholly appropriate that we delay the execution until we can determine that all potential uses of DNA testing have been completed," Bush said in a statement.

The execution has been rescheduled for Jan. 8.

This is King's sixth stay, his fourth this year and second in the last week. It came after attorney Barry Scheck, a member of the O.J. Simpson defense who helped form the nonprofit Innocence Project, met for an hour Monday afternoon with the governor's assistant general counsel, Wendy Berger. The nonprofit group handles cases where post-conviction DNA testing might prove an inmate's innocence.

Berger spoke to scientists at Penn State University and then spoke to Bush, Scheck said. The governor, who signed King's most recent death warrant a year ago, stopped the execution.

"I don't think any governor wants to preside over an execution where DNA testing could be performed," Scheck said.

DNA tests performed in 2001 were not advanced enough for the small amount of genetic material available, Scheck said. Recent technology is significantly improved.

Scheck urged new tests be performed on hair samples and on scrapings from underneath Brady's fingernails. The results are due within 30 days.

Tests on pubic hairs and on sheets will try to isolate semen samples, Scheck said. Semen collected at the crime scene has since been lost, but the blood type from those samples matched King's.

King, 48, has all along claimed his innocence and fought his execution with every avenue.

Monday morning, as he met with his Buddhist spiritual adviser and tried to relax with breathing exercises, the Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts considered a number of appeals.

He ate a meal that included shrimp, scallops, fried fish and oysters, a chicken breast, an avocado salad with tomatoes, butter pecan ice cream and pecan pie.

Two appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court involved the validity of Florida's death sentencing law and King's contention that he is entitled to have an attorney appointed to represent him in petitioning for clemency.

Last week, King won a temporary reprieve from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the issue regarding the clemency attorney.

Sunday, a Clearwater circuit judge rejected three motions to throw out or postpone his death sentence and conduct a new DNA test. Monday afternoon, the Florida Supreme Court refused to stop the execution to allow the DNA testing.

But then Bush made his decision.

King, convicted when Jimmy Carter was president, is the longest-serving inmate on death row from Pinellas County. The average death row inmate serves a little more than 11 years.

When Brady was killed, King was a 22-year-old former mechanic serving four years for stealing a shotgun at a minimum-security work release center.

Brady, a widow who lived alone, told relatives she was afraid when the center was built just 200 yards from her home.

That night in March 1977, after King had returned from a shift washing dishes and Brady had returned from playing bingo, King escaped.

Brady was raped, choked and beaten. She was assaulted with a knitting needle, stabbed with her own paring knife.

She was found, in her nightgown, sprawled in the back doorway of her burning home.

King was caught, in blood-soaked pants, sneaking back into the correctional center the next morning.

He fought with correctional officer James D. "Dan" McDonough for 40 minutes, stabbing him 24 times and leaving him skewered to the wall with a paring knife through his hand.

McDonough lost four pints of blood and nearly died. He still has limited mobility in his right hand.

He has always needed to see King executed, he has said. He was waiting in a lobby at Florida State Prison with some of Brady's relatives when word came of the reprieve.

Outside, death penalty opponents cheered. The Rev. James Warren of Tarpon Springs said he knew Brady when he was a teenager and worked in her house. But he does not believe King killed her. "She was a nice, sweet lady," Warren said. "I believe in justice. But he's no murderer."

Brady was well-known in Tarpon Springs for her Southern cooking and her selfless ways. She ran a restaurant on Tarpon Avenue and is remembered as someone who fed even those who could not pay. She liked to knit and crochet and was a mother figure to her nine younger siblings and to her nieces.

For Brady's family, the close calls and the disappointments have been unbearable. Some of them have grown old, and they can not stand to talk about it anymore.

"I have nothing to say," said her sister, Eva Lysec. "I have nothing to say."

-- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Amos Lee King stays

DEC. 4, 1981: In Tampa, a U.S. district judge orders an indefinite stay four days before King's execution. King had argued that he didn't have competent defense at his murder trial.

NOV. 29, 1988: The Florida Supreme Court grants a stay after a Pinellas circuit judge refuses to read a lengthy motion filed by King's attorney to delay the execution.

JAN. 23, 2002: The U.S. Supreme Court issues a stay, a day before King's execution. The court said it needed time to decide whether his case was like an Arizona case accepted by the court that could lead to Florida's death penalty being declared unconstitutional. The case centers on whether states can let judges, not juries, impose death sentences.

JULY 8, 2002: The Florida Supreme Court stays King's execution, saying it needs time to decide whether a June U.S. Supreme Court decision applies to Florida's death row inmates. The high court had ruled that death penalty laws in five states are unconstitutional because they allow judges instead of juries to impose death sentences.

NOV. 26, 2002: The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals grants a stay, saying it hasn't decided on King's request for a lawyer to represent him in a clemency hearing. The state had refused to give him a state-paid lawyer for a second clemency hearing.

DEC. 2, 2002: Gov. Jeb Bush grants King a 30-day stay so DNA tests that could possibly exonerate him can be run.

-- Compiled by Times news researcher Kitty Bennett from Times files and wires.

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