Florida execution: Death warrant signed in 1998 Hillsborough County murder of 7-year-old
Courtesy: Florida Department of Corrections.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a warrant Tuesday for what is slated to be the 22nd execution of the year, even as a group of people exonerated after sitting on Florida’s death row are asking the next governor to slow the record-setting pace.
The warrant is for Willie Seth Crain, a convicted child molester found guilty in the 1998 disappearance and death of 7-year-old Amanda Brown in Hillsborough County. Brown’s body was never found.
Crain, 80, is scheduled to be executed Dec. 10 at Florida State Prison in Raiford.
Florida has carried out 19 executions this year, equaling the record mark of the previous year, which was the most for the state since the U.S. Supreme Court the death penalty in 1976.
Before Crain is put to death, executions are scheduled for Thomas Mitchell Overton, 71, on Nov. 19 for the deaths of a Tavernier couple in 1992, and for Richardo Gonzalez, 56, on Dec. 1 for killing North Miami Beach police officer Steven Bauer during a 1992 bank robbery.
Floridians for Alternatives to The Death Penalty, which has asked Governor-elect Byron Donalds to pause executions, is holding an event with two exonerees who previously sat on death row in Florida.
"This pace has to stop," Jeff Hood, who has served as spiritual advisor to several executed inmates, wrote in a letter to Donalds. "I oppose the death penalty with everything I have seen. I am asking you for less than abolition. Six months. January 5 through July 5. Sign no warrant. Authorize no execution. Commission an independent examination of the pace, the procedures and the human cost. Make the findings public before the six months are out."
In March, responding to questions about how he would approach the death penalty as governor, Donalds said in a statement that "criminals will not run our communities" and he would "ensure violent criminals swiftly face the full weight of justice."
According to court records, Crain was introduced to Brown by her mother, Kathryn Hartman, whom he had met at a Hillsborough County bar. A day after meeting Hartman, Crain went to her trailer, where he ate dinner and he played with the child. All three went to watch movies at Crain’s trailer before returning to Hartman’s home, where they all went to sleep.
The next morning, Crain and Brown were gone. When contacted by Hartman, Crain said he was loading his boat at a boat landing and did not know Brown’s location.
Investigators believe Crain threw Brown’s body into Old Tampa Bay, where he set crab traps as a commercial fisherman.
Prosecutors said traces of Brown’s blood were found in Crain’s bathroom and on his boxer shorts.
Crain, convicted in 1985 in a separate case of sexual battery on a child, has maintained his innocence.
In November 1999, Crain was sentenced to death for Brown’s death and received a life sentence for her kidnapping. The jury unanimously recommended the death penalty.
In 2000, Crain appealed the ruling, claiming the state failed to establish sufficient evidence of premeditation, gave different jury instructions on the elements of kidnapping, relied on an aggravating circumstance not proven by the evidence, and that the death penalty was unconstitutional. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the convictions and sentences in 2004.