Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed a death warrant for 80-year-old Willie Seth Crain, who was convicted of the 1998 murder of 7-year-old Amanda Brown. The sentence is set to be carried out Dec. 10 at Florida State Prison in Raiford. It will be the 22nd execution scheduled this year in the Sunshine State.
Florida has carried out 19 executions so far in 2026, matching the record set last year. It is the highest annual total in the state since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Two other executions are scheduled before Crain’s. On Nov. 19, 71-year-old Thomas Mitchell Overton, convicted of the 1992 murder of a couple from Tavernier, is to be put to death. On Dec. 1, 56-year-old Richard Gonzalez is scheduled to be executed for killing North Miami Beach police officer Steven Bauer during a 1992 bank robbery.
The case of Willie Seth Crain concerns the disappearance and death of Amanda Brown in Hillsborough County in 1998. According to court documents, Crain met the girl’s mother, Kathryn Hartman, at a bar and visited her at home the next day. After spending the evening together, all three went to sleep. In the morning, Crain and the child were gone.
When Hartman contacted him, he claimed he had been preparing a boat for launch and did not know where the girl was. Amanda’s body was never found. Investigators concluded that Crain may have thrown the child’s body into Old Tampa Bay, where he set crab traps as a commercial fisherman.
In November 1999, Crain was sentenced to death for the girl’s murder and to life in prison for her kidnapping. The jury unanimously recommended the maximum penalty.
Crain, who had previously been convicted in 1985 of sexually assaulting a child in a separate case, has consistently maintained that he did not kill Amanda Brown. In an appeal filed in 2000, he challenged, among other things, the evidence of premeditation, the instructions given to the jury and the constitutionality of the death penalty.
In 2004, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Crain’s convictions and sentences.
Editor: JŁ
Source: Słoneczne Radio
