Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
‘Murderers’ yells man at execution
A FLORIDA inmate convicted of raping and killing a college student decades ago screamed and yelled “murderers” three times, thrashing on a stretcher as he was being put to death.
The governor’s office said Eric Scott Branch, 47, was pronounced dead at 7.05pm yesterday after receiving a lethal injection at Florida State Prison.
Branch was convicted of the 1993 rape and fatal beating of University of West Florida student Susan Morris, 21, whose naked body was found buried in a shallow grave near a nature trail.
Just as officials were administering the lethal drugs that included a powerful sedative, Branch thrashed about on his stretcher and then yelled “murderers, murderers, murderers” before falling silent.
Moments earlier, he had addressed the prison officers in the room saying that, instead of them carrying out the death sentence, it should have been governor Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“Let them come down here and do it. I’ve learned that you’re good people and this is not what you should be doing,” Branch told the officers.
In denying one of Branch’s appeals, the Florida Supreme Court noted that the killing of Ms Morris was particularly brutal.
“She had been beaten, stomped on, sexually assaulted and strangled,” the justices said. “She bore numerous bruises and lacerations and both eyes were swollen shut.”
Branch was also convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Indiana and of another sexual assault in Panama City, Florida, that took place just 10 days before the fatal attack on Ms Morris, court records show.
The jury in his murder case recommended the death penalty by a 10-2 vote under Florida’s old capital punishment system, which was ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 2016.
The high court said juries must reach a unanimous recommendation for death and Florida legislators subsequently changed the system to comply.
One of Branch’s final appeals to the US Supreme Court involved whether he deserved a new sentencing hearing because of the jury’s 10-2 vote in his 1994 trial.
The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that the new system of sentencing does not apply to inmates sentenced to death before 2002.