{"id":2332,"date":"2025-10-14T12:44:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T12:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/2332\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T12:44:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T12:44:08","slug":"nearly-30-years-after-double-murder-florida-to-execute-samuel-smithers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/2332\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 30 years after double murder, Florida to execute Samuel Smithers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1b1f4b45332fb17af5eba137f17d6175.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Nearly 30 years after double murder, Florida to execute Samuel Smithers<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Florida is set to execute Samuel Lee Smithers on Tuesday for the 1996 murders of two women, marking the state\u2019s 14th execution this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Smithers, 72, was convicted of killing two women whose bodies were discovered in a rural pond in Plant City in Hillsborough County.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This execution contributes to the highest number of executions in Florida in a single year since the reinstatement of the death penalty.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Smithers\u2019 execution underscores Florida\u2019s increased use of capital punishment, with this year seeing the most executions since the death penalty was reinstated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/mobile-apps\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Click here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:click here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ylk=\"ct:story;elm:img;itc:0;\" class=\"stretched-box\" href=\"https:\/\/wftvapps.com\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"537\" height=\"108\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/beda08358d6db9816e7b0d066edd22cf.jpeg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 30 years after double murder, Florida to execute Samuel Smithers Florida is set to execute Samuel Lee&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2195,28,30,29,1880],"class_list":["post-2332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-execution","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-samuel-lee-smithers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}