Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

'I hope he suffered': Killer dies in prison

The man who kidnapped and shot a Punta Gorda prosecutor dies on death row.

PUNTA GORDA - A former prosecutor who survived a 1988 shooting that claimed the life of a colleague lamented that their attacker wasn't executed long before his death from natural causes in prison last week.

Samuel A. Pettit, 43, who suffered from a degenerative brain disorder, died Nov. 4 on death row at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford.

"I know Pettit's in hell and I feel good about that," former state prosecutor Kathleen Finnegan told the Charlotte Sun. She was wounded when Pettit kidnapped then shot her and Norman Langston in August 1988. Langston, also a prosecutor, was killed.

Pettit was in a wheelchair for the last several years and was unable to care for himself.

"I hope he suffered greatly," Finnegan said. "I've waited for this day."

Finnegan, who was 28 at the time, and Langston, 27, were getting into a car outside a Punta Gorda hotel after a social gathering when Pettit approached with a gun.

He forced them to drive to a dam, robbed them and fired his gun four times in the car. Langston covered Finnegan with his body, shielding her from the bullets.

Pettit was arrested on a Naples beach the next night and sentenced to death in 1989. He had said he didn't want anyone crying over his death because he was "not crying over anyone else."

Pettit had 17 prior arrests and had served only a small portion of his previous sentence before being let out of prison in 1988. He was still on probation when he kidnapped Langston and Finnegan. The crime inspired Finnegan to lead the Stop Turning Out Prisoners initiative to pass legislation forcing prisoners to serve at least 85 percent of their sentence.

"I always knew we would receive justice from God, long before his case made it through the quagmire of the appeals process," Finnegan said. "I'm reflective of Norm's life. Pettit lived 6,286 days longer than Norm. ... He was a good man and a hero. I know he's smiling in heaven today."

Pettit's death provided little comfort to Norman Langston's brother, Richard.

"You talk about a waste of time, talent, everything," Richard Langston, an attorney in Frankfort, Ind., told the Sun. "Here's a kid who put his life in position to finally reap the harvest, and he was cut down by some idiot with a Saturday night special."

The justice system failed because Pettit was sentenced to death but was "allowed to deteriorate in jail," Richard Langston said. "He shouldn't have died in prison; he should have been executed in prison."

[Last modified November 12, 2005, 00:54:17]