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

On October 14th, 2025, after more than 26 years on death row, justice was finally served. Baptist Deacon Samuel Lee Smithers was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison. In this video, we will reveal what happened that day, what his last meal was, and what his final words were.

Samuel Lee Smithers was quite literally a demon disguised as a saint. To everyone’s eyes, he was a deeply religious man. But behind that facade lurked a disturbing darkness. He was born in Tennessee into a very devout family, and his mother, a deeply faithful woman, raised him in a strictly religious environment.

The Facade of Faith

Fifteen years before committing the crime that would land him on death row, in 1979, Smithers—then 26 years old—was ordained as a full deacon at East Ridge Baptist Church near Chattanooga, Tennessee. His supposed devotion made him seem like a model of virtue. But for him, being admired as a man of faith was not enough; deep down, he craved more recognition. Soon after, a series of mysterious fires began occurring near the areas where he performed his religious duties.

Curiously, Samuel had volunteered for the fire department shortly before the fires began. At each incident, he was the one raising the alarm and quickly appearing at the scene, helmet and boots on, pretending to be a hero. When investigators confronted him, Smithers ultimately confessed he had started the fires himself, all to be seen as a savior. The community, horrified, completely rejected him, and the admiration he had once received vanished.

Humiliated and cast out, Samuel decided to leave the area. Thus, in the 1980s, Samuel Lee Smithers moved to Plant City, Florida, determined to start a new life. There, he built a seemingly respectable existence. He married, adopted a child named Jonathan, and faithful to his image as a pious man, became a deacon once again, this time at the local First Baptist Church.

He worked as an electrician at Burrell Electric, located on North Nebraska Avenue in Tampa. His colleagues described him as a quiet man with simple manners, deeply religious, and with a marked rural air. He never raised his voice and never uttered a bad word. He lived with his wife and son in a modest two-story house right next to Plant City High School. Everything in his life seemed perfectly in order, or at least that’s what everyone believed.

A Double Life

However, Samuel Lee Smithers led a disturbing double life. Behind his facade of a man of God and exemplary father, he hid a troubling sexual compulsion that even his marriage could not satisfy. Taking advantage of his position as a custodian at the First Baptist Church, Smithers offered favors to several women in exchange for altering their community service hours. His obsession was so intense that, according to reports, he could engage in sexual activity up to six times a day.

At night, he frequented an area known as the Stroll, a 16-block stretch along the busy East Hillsborough Avenue in downtown Tampa. It was a place filled with run-down motels, pawn shops, and used car lots—a spot where prostitution was part of the everyday landscape.

A year before the murders, Smithers resigned from his position as a church custodian after being accused of offering to falsify a woman’s community service hours in exchange for sexual favors. Still, he retained his role as a deacon and continued to be seen by many as a trustworthy neighbor and a respectable man within the community.

During his time as an active church member, Samuel Lee Smithers met Marion Whitehurst, an elementary school teacher who attended the same church and was a friend of his wife. In 1995, Whitehurst asked Smithers to take care of the lawn at one of her properties—a vacant house on a 27-acre lot surrounded by three ponds and protected by a fence with a gate at the front. She gave him a key to access the grounds, but not to the house itself. No one could have imagined that this peaceful place would later become the scene of his most heinous crimes.

The Murders

The first murder occurred on May 12th, 1996. That day, Smithers encountered Denise Elaine Roach, a 24-year-old woman and mother of two daughters, known on the streets of Tampa by the nickname “New York.” She was a Jamaican prostitute who had struggled with addiction from a very young age and had multiple prior arrests for drug-related offenses.

Smithers hired her services at a motel and took her to Whitehurst’s property. According to his initial statement to the police, he claimed the death was an accident. He said he had argued with Roach, pushed her against a wall inside the house, and a piece of wood fell on her face. He alleged that when he returned the next day, he found her lifeless. But forensic evidence revealed a completely different story.

Roach’s body was found floating in one of the ponds in an advanced state of decomposition. Experts determined she had been there between 7 and 10 days. She had two cuts in her clothing caused by a sharp object, a fractured face and skull, 16 stab wounds (several penetrating the bone), and clear signs of manual strangulation. The coroner’s report was unequivocal: Denise Roach died as a result of a combination of strangulation and multiple stab wounds.

Sixteen days later, on May 28th, 1996, Samuel Lee Smithers killed again. This time, the victim was Christy Elizabeth Cowan, a 31-year-old woman. In her youth, Christy had been an exemplary student with dreams of becoming a nurse. But life was not kind to her. Personal problems, addictions, and arrests for drugs and prostitution led her down a path she never escaped. She was a mother of two, and according to those who knew her, she had a strong and defiant personality. She wasn’t afraid to confront clients who refused to pay and sometimes even stole from them.

A friend of Denise Roach, the first victim, reported seeing Christy get into a pickup truck with a “Bad Boy” sticker on the rear window shortly before her disappearance. That clue would prove crucial. Hillsborough County detectives reviewed surveillance footage and found a video showing Smithers and Cowan together at a convenience store. They bought potato chips and an orange Minute Maid drink. The video’s timestamp was 6:19 p.m. on May 28th, 1996.

Forensic examination of Christy Cowan revealed a scene even more gruesome than the previous one. She had foam around her mouth, indicating she may have died from suffocation or drowning. She had an eye injury, a deep laceration under her lip, a severe blow to the jaw, an ax wound on the top of her skull that penetrated her brain, and another behind her ear. Additionally, there were clear signs of manual strangulation.

The Discovery at the Property

On the evening of May 28th, 1996, around 7:00 p.m., Marion Whitehurst decided to stop by her property. Upon arriving, she noticed the gate was locked, but she opened it and drove up to the house. In front of the garage, she saw Samuel Lee Smithers’s pickup truck parked. Smithers was inside the garage cleaning a long-handled ax. When Whitehurst asked what he was doing there, he calmly replied that he had returned to trim some tree branches.

However, while they spoke, she noticed something that made her shiver: a pool of blood on the garage floor. Without losing his composure, Smithers assured her that it was probably some animal that had passed through and that he would take care of cleaning it up. Whitehurst pretended to believe him but left with an unsettling feeling she couldn’t ignore.

On her way home, she remembered seeing drag marks in the grass extending from the garage to one of the property’s ponds. That night, driven by suspicion, she called the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department. Hours later, Officer Skolnick arrived at the scene. The pool of blood had already been cleaned, but the drag marks remained perfectly visible under the light of his flashlight.

Investigators began a thorough search of the property. What they found in the murky pond water confirmed their worst fears: the bodies of Denise Roach and Christy Cowan were there, submerged, brutally beaten, strangled, and left to die. That same night, Samuel Lee Smithers was arrested. The man who had presented himself for years as a servant of God had turned out to be a ruthless murderer.

Interrogation and Trial

When questioned by authorities, Samuel Lee Smithers tried to maintain his facade of innocence. He denied any involvement in the deaths of Denise Roach and Christy Cowan, claiming he had no idea how their bodies had ended up in the pond. But as the interrogation progressed, his story began to unravel.

Eventually, he confessed. He stated that he had struck Christy Cowan with an ax during an argument over money and, believing her dead, dragged her by the feet to the pond and threw her in, still alive. He also admitted to having a confrontation with Denise Roach inside the house, claiming he pushed her against a wall and a piece of wood fell on her. He said that when he returned the next day, he found her lifeless.

But his version did not match the brutal forensic evidence. The wounds, signs of strangulation, and the crime scene all pointed to uncontrolled violence far beyond an accident.

During his 1998 trial, Smithers completely changed his story. On the stand, he claimed that everything was part of a blackmail and drug trafficking scheme. He alleged that an unknown man had threatened to show his wife a compromising photo if he didn’t allow him to use the property for business. According to him, he received money in exchange for leaving the gate open, and testified that he witnessed the murders but never participated directly. “I had never done anything like this before. But it was easy money,” he told the jury.

However, neither his tone nor his words were convincing. Prosecutors described him as a man leading a double life: a deacon and family man on the outside, but a cold, calculating predator when the lights went out. After just 90 minutes of deliberation, the jury had no doubts: guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.

During the sentencing phase, some of his family members spoke about the harsh childhood they had shared, marked by extreme religious upbringing and severe physical punishment. But even that was not enough to mitigate the severity of his crimes. The jury unanimously recommended the death penalty.

Over the years, new suspicions arose. Investigators began to believe that Smithers may have been involved in other unsolved homicides, including that of Marcelle Delano, a woman whose body was found in 1989 in a wooded area just 2.5 miles from the location where the bodies of Roach and Cowan would later be discovered.

Final Appeals and Execution

During his 26 years on death row, Samuel Lee Smithers filed multiple appeals and federal habeas corpus petitions, all of which were denied by the respective courts. In his direct appeal, the Florida Supreme Court upheld his convictions and sentences.

In September 2025, after Governor Ron DeSantis signed the execution order, Smithers filed a post-conviction motion claiming that executing him at age 72 would constitute cruel and unusual punishment due to his advanced age. His attorneys argued that executing an elderly person violated the Constitution and lacked a legitimate penal purpose. A physician who evaluated Smithers for 5 hours on September 18th noted significant deterioration in his IQ and verbal comprehension.

Despite these arguments, the Florida Supreme Court dismissed the motion on October 7th, 2025, ruling that the claim was untimely and procedurally barred under Florida criminal procedure. The court held that, according to U.S. Supreme Court precedent, there is no categorical exemption from execution based solely on a convict’s advanced age.

The long-awaited day finally arrived. Samuel Lee Smithers Jr. was executed on October 14th, 2025, by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison near Starke at 6:00 p.m. He was 72 years old at the time of his death, making him the oldest person ever executed in modern Florida history. This marked the 14th execution in Florida in 2025, setting a record for the highest number of executions in a single year in the state.

Bound to the gurney and moments away from execution, when asked if he had any final statement, Smithers said, “No, sir.” The execution proceeded without reported complications. Smithers was officially declared dead shortly after 6:15 p.m., and no signs of distress were documented during the lethal injection procedure.

For those who want to explore the case of Samuel Lee Smithers further, there are two books on the subject. One of them is Deacon of Death: Sam Smithers, The Serial Killer Next Door by author Fred Rosen. Based on exclusive interviews with Smithers’s wife, who described her husband as a devoted father and husband, Rosen examines how a man raised in a deeply religious home in Tennessee and seen as a man of God could commit such horrific crimes.

On the same day, at the same hour, but in another state in Missouri, Lance C. Shockley was also executed by lethal injection for the murder of a police officer.