Killer screams, yells ‘Murderers!’ during execution

A Florida inmate convicted of raping and killing a college student in 1993 screamed and yelled “Murderers!” three times, thrashing on a gurney as he was being put to death Thursday night.

The governor’s office said Eric Scott Branch, 47, was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. after receiving a lethal injection at Florida State Prison. Branch was convicted of the 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 let out a bloodcurdling scream, thrashed about on his gurney and then yelled “Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!” before falling silent with a guttural groan.

Moments earlier, he had addressed the corrections officers in the room with him by saying that, instead of them carrying out the death sentence, it should have been Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi, both Republicans.

“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.

Outside the prison, Herman Lindsey joined anti-death penalty protesters. Lindsey, a former death-row inmate who was exonerated in 2009, said he wants to see the practice abolished.

“There’s no way to guarantee we’re not killing innocent people,” he said.

Evidence in the case shows that Branch approached Morris after she left a night class on

Jan. 11, 1993, so he could steal her red Toyota and return to his home state of Indiana. He was arrested while traveling there.

In denying one of Branch’s appeals, the Florida Supreme Court noted that the crime was particularly brutal.

“She had been beaten, stomped, sexually assaulted and strangled. She bore numerous bruises and lacerations, both eyes were swollen shut,” the justices wrote.

Branch also was convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Indiana and of another sexual assault in Panama City 10 days before the fatal attack on 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 U.S. Supreme Court in 2016.

Branch