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Jury says murderer should die
By RICK GERSHMAN © St. Petersburg Times, published January 25, 1999 TAMPA -- The jury met on a clear Sunday morning, the kind of day Sam Smithers used to spend at church. But that was before Smithers' pristine image unraveled. Before the Plant City man was charged with beating and strangling two prostitutes in spring 1996, before he was convicted last month on two counts of first-degree murder. Because of that, Smithers spent Sunday calmly listening to a jury recommend he die in the electric chair for killing Christy Cowan and Denise Roach. It took 90 minutes of discussion, then the 12 jurors agreed unanimously on both counts. The jury had returned Smithers' murder convictions after deliberating for about the same period. "I think it was the right and appropriate verdict," said prosecutor Ed Schmoll. The decision on whether Smithers, 45, will face death or life in prison lies with Hillsborough Circuit Judge William Fuente. He will hold a hearing March 5 to determine what aggravating or mitigating factors apply to Smithers, Schmoll said, then set a date for his decision. Sunday, Schmoll argued that Smithers should be put to death because the murders were "heinous, atrocious and cruel" and were "cold, calculated and with premeditated design." Before his trial, Smithers had told detectives that after beating Cowan in the head with an ax and hoe he threw her, still breathing, into a pond that already contained Roach's body. The Connecticut-born Cowan, 31, had two children, as did Roach, 24, who was born in Jamaica. Both had a record of prostitution arrests. The pond was on property where Smithers mowed the lawn for the owner, Marian Whitehurst, an elementary schoolteacher who worked with Smithers' then-wife. Whitehurst told detectives she dropped by one day to discover a puddle of blood and Smithers hosing down a long-handled ax. She was suspicious of Smithers' story that the blood might have come from a squirrel and alerted Hillsborough sheriff's deputies, who discovered the bodies. Smithers changed his story at trial, where the former electrician's helper testified he lied to police about killing the women and blamed a mysterious bearded man who blackmailed him to use the property. Smithers claimed he watched as other men murdered the women and was ordered to drag their bodies into the pond. Following the murder convictions, defense attorneys presented evidence about Smithers' childhood and adolescence, when relatives said he was regularly beaten. Schmoll said Defense attorney Scott Robbins contended that Smithers' mother wanted to "beat the devil out of him," initiating a mental illness.
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