Killer's request: a new trial on a higher charge

Denied his bid for death in 1997, Bradley Knox was convicted of second-degree murder. He wants a new trial on a first-degree murder charge.

By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 8, 2000

LARGO -- Bradley Brent Knox admitted back in 1997 that he strangled a St. Petersburg prostitute. He wanted the death penalty for the killing.

Knox, however, was stunned when prosecutors said his wasn't a case worthy of society's greatest punishment. They declined to seek death. Murderers, Knox argued, should get their death wish.

"Why not give us what we want?" he said at the time.

A reluctant Knox, 41, eventually pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge and received a 25-year prison sentence. But it wasn't the end of his case.

Knox withdrew his guilty plea on June 23 and is now seeking a trial on a first-degree murder charge for the death of Barbara Jean Faulkner of St. Petersburg. Prosecutors are saying they will seek death, Knox's attorney said.

It didn't look that way Friday. Prosecutors again offered Knox the same plea deal he accepted in 1997. If he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge, he would be sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Knox declined the offer.

Assistant Public Defender Bob Gardner said his client decided to withdraw his plea last month because he thought his 25-year sentence exceeded state guidelines. His client would rather face the prospect of death than accept the plea, he said.

"This kind of thing doesn't happen every day," Gardner said.

Usually, a defendant would be procedurally barred from withdrawing a plea so far after the fact. But Knox was allowed to do so after prosecutors consented.

Knox's attorney during his plea withdrawal, John Swisher, was worried in the beginning that his client might be a death-penalty "volunteer," one of those rare inmates who invite death rather than fight it.

But Swisher said, "I don't think that's true now. If that were the case, I think I would have asked to have him examined" before allowing him to withdraw the plea.

Prosecutors handling the case could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Gardner said he does not think prosecutors will win the death penalty if Knox is convicted. And even prosecutors themselves thought it wasn't a death penalty case two years ago.

Factually, nothing about the case has changed since then.

Faulkner, 33, was found stuffed in a laundry bag and dropped by a trash bin in October 1995. The investigation of her slaying ran into a dead end until Knox himself called police nearly a year later.

He had moved to Indiana. But he called detectives and told them his brother had killed the woman.

Police quickly determined Knox's brother couldn't have killed Faulkner. But they developed evidence linking Knox to the crime. Under questioning, Knox admitted killing the woman, police said.

Knox has said in the past that Faulkner had given him AIDS. Swisher said Knox is HIV positive but does not have AIDS.

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