Florida executed 57-year-old inmate Michael Lambrix on Thursday in Bradford County for two homicides he committed in the 1990s. He died following the administration of the state’s lethal injection protocol at Florida State Prison, the Orlando Sentinel reported. Lambrix was pronounced dead at 10:10 PM.
Lambrix was sentenced to death for murdering Aleisha Bryant and her boyfriend Clarence Moore in 1993. Lambrix was with Frances Smith, his girlfriend, at a bar in Glades County when they met Moore. A while later, Bryant arrived, according to the Daily Mail (UK).
Lambrix said the two couples danced and drank. They were reportedly “having a great night,” so Lambrix invited the couple to his mobile home for spaghetti and to drink some more, court documents reflect.
Killer finished spaghetti dinner following murders committed
Smith testified, according to court records, that Lambrix asked Moore to step outside the trailer. Nearly a half-hour later, he then asked Bryant to come outside. After Lambrix went back inside the trailer with his clothing covered in blood, Smith said that Lambrix told her that he killed Moore and Bryant, according to the Associated Press (AP).
She also testified that he told her that he needed her assistance in burying the couple’s bodies.
Lambrix and Smith finished the spaghetti, the AP noted. The couple buried the bodies and cleaned themselves. When police later stopped Smith, who was driving Moore’s car that had been reported missing, she gave law enforcement her account of what happened to Bryant and Moore, the Daily Mail reported.
Lambrix, however, asserted that Bryant was killed by Moore.
He said he only killed Moore in self-defense, according to the Chicago Tribune. Lambrix asserted that his reason for not calling 911 to report the couple’s deaths was that he was aware he would face a lengthy prison term because he had absconded during a prison work-release program.
Bryant was choked to death by Lambrix, according to prosecutors and the AP.
When he murdered Moore, he used a tire iron. Law enforcement recovered Bryant’s and Moore’s bodies, the bloody shirt that Lambrix wore during the murders, and the tire iron.
Convicted murderer had two trials, sentenced to death
Lambrix had two trials. A hung jury resulted from the first trial. Following his second trial, the jury found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for killing Bryant and Moore. The majority of jurors voted 10-2 that he receive the death penalty.
He was offered a plea deal but rejected the offer to admit guilt to second-degree murder. He would have been free over a decade ago if he had accepted the plea bargain, the Daily News reported.
U.S. Supreme Court rejected appeal, killer’s last words were ‘Lord’s Prayer’
His original execution was slated for 2016, yet the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hurst v. Florida that the state’s system for death penalty cases was unconstitutional, the AP relayed. The high court justices ruled that Florida’s system leveraged judges with too much power when juries should wield the power. A new sentencing system was enacted in Florida in 2002. Lambrix's case, according to the nation’s highest court, did not qualify for a reprieve under the new system.
After the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his last appeal and decline to intervene on Thursday, Lambrix became the 94th condemned inmate the state of Florida executed since reinstating capital punishment in 1976. His final words were the “Lord’s Prayer,” the AP reported.
