5 Mins Ago: Baptist Deacon Executed for Killing Prostitutes – Samuel Lee Smithers | Last Words

On October 14th, 2025, after more than twenty-six long years spent sitting on death row, ultimate justice was finally served.

Baptist Deacon Samuel Lee Smithers was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison near Starke.

To the casual observer, he was a deeply religious, humble man, but behind that pious facade lurked a disturbing, cold-blooded predator.

Born into a devout family in Tennessee, Smithers was raised by a strictly faithful mother in an intense religious environment.

In 1979, at twenty-six years old, he was ordained as a full deacon at East Ridge Baptist Church near Chattanooga.

While his outward devotion made him seem like a model of virtue, he craved far more public recognition than standard worship provided.

Soon after his ordination, a series of mysterious fires began breaking out around areas where he performed religious duties.

Smithers had conveniently volunteered for the local fire department shortly before the blazes began, allowing him to play a specific role.

At each incident, he was the first to raise the alarm, arriving fully geared in helmet and boots to play the hero.

When skeptical investigators finally confronted him, Smithers confessed that he had set the blazes himself just to be seen as a savior.

Horrified by his actions, the local community completely rejected him, causing his cherished public admiration to vanish instantly.

Humiliated, cast out, and stripped of his standing, he decided his only option was to leave the area entirely behind.

During the 1980s, Samuel Lee Smithers relocated to Plant City, Florida, determined to build a clean, respectable new life.

He married, adopted a son named Jonathan, and quickly re-established his pious persona by becoming a deacon at First Baptist Church.

He secured steady employment as an electrician at Burell Electric, located on North Nebraska Avenue in Tampa.

Colleagues viewed him as a quiet, soft-spoken worker with simple manners, a marked rural demeanor, and an agreeable disposition.

He never raised his voice, never uttered profanity, and lived quietly in a modest two-story home beside Plant City High School.

To his neighbors and fellow parishioners, his life appeared entirely orderly, wholesome, and devoted to family and God.

Underneath this carefully constructed exterior, however, Smithers led a deeply disturbing double life driven by unyielding compulsions.

Exploiting his duties as a custodian at First Baptist Church, he offered unauthorized favors to vulnerable women.

Specifically, he promised to alter court-mandated community service hours in exchange for explicit sexual favors.

His intense obsession drove him to seek sexual gratification up to six times a day, far beyond his domestic life.

At night, he frequented a notorious street stretch in downtown Tampa known locally by regulars as “The Stroll.”

This sixteen-block patch along East Hillsborough Avenue was filled with run-down motels, pawn shops, and rampant prostitution.

His illicit activities eventually caught up with him a year prior to the murders when complaints surfaced at the church.

He resigned his custodial job after being formally accused of falsifying service records for sexual encounters.

Yet, he remarkably retained his title as deacon and maintained his public standing as a trustworthy neighbor.

During his time at the church, Smithers met Marian Whitehurst, an elementary school teacher and close friend of his wife.

In 1995, Whitehurst hired him to maintain the grounds of her vacant twenty-seven-acre property surrounded by three ponds.

She provided him a key to the gated entrance, unaware that the peaceful lot would soon become a horror site.

On May 12th, 1996, Smithers encountered twenty-four-year-old Denise Elaine Roach, known on Tampa streets as “New York.”

Roach, a mother of two daughters, had struggled with severe addiction and drug-related arrests from a very young age.

Smithers solicited her services at a motel before driving her directly to Whitehurst’s secluded property.

When police later discovered Roach’s decomposing body floating in one of the property’s ponds, Smithers claimed her death was accidental.

He alleged they argued inside the vacant house, he pushed her against a wall, and heavy wood fell onto her face.

He claimed he left and only found her lifeless body when he returned to the property the following morning.

Forensic science quickly shattered his fragile cover story, revealing immense violence inflicted upon the young woman’s body.

Medical examiners estimated she had been in the pond for seven to ten days prior to discovery.

Her remains showed facial fractures, sixteen stab wounds penetrating bone, clothing slash marks, and clear signs of manual strangulation.

Just sixteen days later, on May 28th, 1996, Samuel Lee Smithers struck again on the exact same property.

His second victim was thirty-one-year-old Christy Elizabeth Cowan, a mother of two who had once dreamed of becoming a nurse.

Tragically, personal hardships, severe addiction, and repeated arrests had led Cowan down a dark, dangerous path.

Cowan was known by acquaintances to possess a fiercely defiant personality, never hesitating to confront clients who refused to pay.

Shortly before her disappearance, a friend of Denise Roach saw Cowan enter a pickup truck featuring a distinctive bumper sticker.

That specific vehicle detail gave detectives their first major lead in connecting the missing women.

Hillsborough County investigators reviewed nearby convenience store surveillance footage recorded at 6:19 p.m. on May 28th.

The video clearly showed Smithers and Cowan purchasing potato chips together alongside an orange Minute Maid beverage.

It was the last time Cowan was ever seen alive before her brutal demise inside Whitehurst’s garage.

That very evening, around 7:00 p.m., property owner Marian Whitehurst unexpectedly decided to check on her vacant land.

Unlocking the gate, she drove up to the garage where she found Smithers actively scrubbing a long-handled axe.

When questioned, Smithers calmly stated he had merely returned to trim overhanging tree branches around the property.

As they spoke, Whitehurst spotted a dark pool of blood staining the concrete floor right inside the garage door.

Without losing his composure, Smithers casually assured her that an animal must have wandered inside and died.

Whitehurst pretended to accept his explanation, but left the property feeling deeply unsettled by the suspicious encounter.

Driving away, she noticed wide drag marks in the grass leading directly from the garage toward one of the ponds.

Unable to ignore her instincts, she immediately contacted the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department to report the scene.

Deputy Skolnick arrived shortly after to investigate the premises under the cover of night.

Although the blood pool inside the garage had been thoroughly washed away, the drag marks remained vivid under flashlight beam.

Deputies initiated a detailed search of the murky pond water, expecting the worst based on Whitehurst’s account.

Submerged in the dark water, searchers uncovered the battered bodies of both Denise Roach and Christy Cowan.

Autopsy results for Cowan revealed horrifying trauma, including severe facial lacerations, jaw fractures, and manual strangulation marks.

Deep axe wounds had penetrated her skull directly into her brain, and foam around her mouth suggested active drowning.

Forensic examiners concluded she was still alive when dragged across the lawn and thrown into the pond.

Deputies arrested Smithers that same night, exposing the revered deacon as a predatory serial killer operating in secret.

During initial interrogations, he attempted to maintain his innocence, claiming total ignorance of the bodies in the pond.

However, as physical evidence mounted, his story collapsed, forcing him to admit to portions of the physical attacks.

During his 1998 murder trial, Smithers completely altered his defense, concocting an elaborate blackmail and drug conspiracy.

He claimed an anonymous man blackmailed him with compromising photos, forcing him to grant access to the secluded property.

He testified he received money to keep the gate open and merely witnessed the horrific murders without participating directly.

Prosecuting attorneys easily dismantled his unbelievable testimony, presenting him as a cold, calculating monster wearing a pious mask.

The jury deliberated for just ninety minutes before returning guilty verdicts on two counts of first-degree murder.

During sentencing, family testimony regarding his abusive, hyper-religious childhood failed to sway the jury, which recommended death.

In the decades following his conviction, investigators explored potential ties between Smithers and other unsolved local homicides.

Detectives specifically examined the 1989 murder of Marcel Dano, found dead just miles from Whitehurst’s property.

Though strong suspicions remained regarding additional victims, Smithers spent his remaining decades focused strictly on legal appeals.

Over twenty-six years on death row, Smithers filed numerous state appeals and federal habeas corpus petitions without success.

Every court upheld his convictions, citing the overwhelming physical evidence and utter senselessness of his violent actions.

In September 2025, Governor Ron DeSantis officially signed his execution warrant, scheduling the final lethal injection.

Smithers’ attorneys filed a final motion arguing that executing a seventy-two-year-old man constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

Medical evaluations noted cognitive decline, but the Florida Supreme Court rejected the petition as procedurally barred and untimely.

The court affirmed established precedent that advanced age alone provides no categorical exemption from legal capital punishment.

On October 14th, 2025, at 6:00 p.m., Samuel Lee Smithers Jr. was strapped to the gurney in Florida.

At seventy-two years old, he became the oldest individual ever executed in modern Florida state history.

When asked if he wished to deliver any final statement before the lethal drugs flowed, he simply replied, “No, sir.”

The execution proceeded without complication, and he was officially declared dead shortly after 6:15 p.m.

His execution marked Florida’s fourteenth carried out in 2025, setting a historical single-year state record.

For those seeking deeper analysis, author Fred Rosen documented the case in his book, Deacon of Death.

Coincidentally, on that same day and hour, Missouri executed Lance C. Shockley for murdering a police officer.

Both cases brought long-awaited, definitive closure to communities plagued by horrific acts of senseless violence.

The tragic legacy of Samuel Lee Smithers remains a stark reminder of darkness hiding behind public virtue.