Florida
Man convicted of killing 2 women set for execution
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of killing two women, one in Florida and another in California, has been scheduled for execution in Florida under a death warrant signed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the fifth this year.
Glen Edward Rogers, 62, is set to die by lethal injection May 15 at Florida State Prison near the city of Starke.
Rogers was convicted in 1997 and sentenced to death for the murder of Tina Marie Cribbs. The two were seen leaving a Gibsonton, Florida, bar together in November 1995. The woman was found stabbed to death in a hotel bathroom two days later.
Rogers received another death sentence in California in 1999. He met Sandra Gallagher at a Van Nuys, California, bar in September 1995. Her badly burned corpse was found in her truck a day later near Rogers’ apartment.
Rogers is also suspected in several other homicides throughout the United States.
Three other executions have taken place in Florida this year, with a fourth upcoming May 1, all by lethal injection.
On March 20, Edward James, 63, was executed for killing an 8-year-old girl and her grandmother in 1993. James Dennis Ford, 64, was put to death Feb. 13 for the 1997 murders of a married couple while out on a fishing trip.
Earlier this month, Michael Tanzi, 48, died by lethal injection April 8 for kidnapping and murdering a woman in the Florida Keys in 2000.
Gulf War Army veteran Jeffrey Hutchinson, 59, is set to die by lethal injection May 1. He’s convicted of killing his girlfriend and her three children with a shotgun.
Indiana
State Supreme Court sets May execution for man convicted of killing officer
A man convicted of killing an Indiana police officer during a foot chase 24 years ago will be executed next month, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
Benjamin Ritchie shot Beech Grove Police Officer Bill Toney in September 2000. According to court records, Ritchie jumped out of a stolen van after a police pursuit. Toney was chasing him when Ritchie turned and shot him four times.
A jury convicted Ritchie of murder and other offenses in 2002. The trial judge imposed the death penalty.
Ritchie has spent years challenging the convictions at the state and federal level to no avail. His latest motion asks permission to raise claims that his attorney was ineffective because the lawyer failed to investigate whether Ritchie suffered from fetal alcohol spectrum disorders as well as childhood lead exposure. Ritchie also sought permission to argue that his age at the time of the shooting — he was 20 years old — should be taken into consideration.
The Supreme Court denied the request and ordered that he be executed before sunrise on May 20. Justice Geoffrey Slaughter wrote that the court couldn’t assume further evidence of Ritchie’s cognitive impairments would have swayed his jury.
Chief Justice Loretta Rush wrote in dissent that the evidence suggests Ritchie was suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder when he committed his crimes.
“We should not set a date for the most irrevocable of punishments without first ensuring that Ritchie was not denied the effective assistance of counsel,” Rush wrote.
Court records list Ritchie’s attorney as public defender Amy Karozos. She didn’t immediately respond to a message The Associated Press left on her office voicemail after hours Tuesday seeking comment on the justices’ decision.
Ritchie’s execution will be the first in the state since Joseph Corcoran was put to death by lethal injection on Dec. 18. Corcoran was convicted in the July 1997 shootings of his brother; his sister’s fiancé; and two other men.
His execution was the state’s first in 15 years, a hiatus marked by a scarcity of lethal injection drugs nationwide.
Maryland
Salvadoran fugitive convicted in deadly attack of female hiker
BEL AIR, Md. (AP) — A fugitive from El Salvador was convicted Monday in the 2023 slaying of a Maryland woman who was attacked while exercising on a popular hiking trail northeast of Baltimore.
Prosecutors alleged that Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 24, was carrying out a planned attack when he grabbed Rachel Morin off the trail, bashed her head against nearby rocks, raped her and concealed her body in a drainage culvert. Their case hinged on DNA evidence connecting him to the crime.
A jury found Martinez-Hernandez guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree rape, among other offenses, according to Randolph Rice, an attorney representing Morin’s relatives.
“The Morin family is incredibly relieved that justice was served today,” Rice said in a statement.
Martinez-Hernandez was accused of entering the United States illegally after allegedly killing another woman in his home country. Authorities also linked him to a 2023 home invasion in Los Angeles.
Morin was killed in August 2023. The act of violence sent shock waves through Bel Air, a suburban community northeast of Baltimore. It also became a political flashpoint during the 2024 presidential election campaign as Donald Trump called for increased border security and mass deportations of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
Trump posted on social media about the verdict Monday night, saying Morin’s “life was taken at the hands of a monster who should have NEVER been here in the first place” and blaming the Biden administration for failing to properly secure the border.
Martinez-Hernandez was arrested last summer in Oklahoma. He had been living in Bel Air around the time of Morin’s death, prosecutors said. They said Morin went walking or running along the same route almost every day, usually in the evenings.
Defense attorneys challenged prosecutors’ assertion that the crime was a random attack and said police simply got the wrong guy. They also asked jurors to pay close attention to unanswered questions during the trial, including questions of motive.
Detectives collected DNA from several places on Morin’s body and developed Martinez-Hernandez as a suspect, according to prosecutors. After interviewing some of his relatives, detectives matched DNA from the scene with DNA collected from socks that Martinez-Hernandez left behind when he fled Maryland.
Morin, 37, left behind five children. Her 14-year-old daughter was the first witness to testify last week, fighting back tears as she described the immediate aftermath of her mom’s disappearance.
Man convicted of killing 2 women set for execution
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of killing two women, one in Florida and another in California, has been scheduled for execution in Florida under a death warrant signed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the fifth this year.
Glen Edward Rogers, 62, is set to die by lethal injection May 15 at Florida State Prison near the city of Starke.
Rogers was convicted in 1997 and sentenced to death for the murder of Tina Marie Cribbs. The two were seen leaving a Gibsonton, Florida, bar together in November 1995. The woman was found stabbed to death in a hotel bathroom two days later.
Rogers received another death sentence in California in 1999. He met Sandra Gallagher at a Van Nuys, California, bar in September 1995. Her badly burned corpse was found in her truck a day later near Rogers’ apartment.
Rogers is also suspected in several other homicides throughout the United States.
Three other executions have taken place in Florida this year, with a fourth upcoming May 1, all by lethal injection.
On March 20, Edward James, 63, was executed for killing an 8-year-old girl and her grandmother in 1993. James Dennis Ford, 64, was put to death Feb. 13 for the 1997 murders of a married couple while out on a fishing trip.
Earlier this month, Michael Tanzi, 48, died by lethal injection April 8 for kidnapping and murdering a woman in the Florida Keys in 2000.
Gulf War Army veteran Jeffrey Hutchinson, 59, is set to die by lethal injection May 1. He’s convicted of killing his girlfriend and her three children with a shotgun.
Indiana
State Supreme Court sets May execution for man convicted of killing officer
A man convicted of killing an Indiana police officer during a foot chase 24 years ago will be executed next month, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
Benjamin Ritchie shot Beech Grove Police Officer Bill Toney in September 2000. According to court records, Ritchie jumped out of a stolen van after a police pursuit. Toney was chasing him when Ritchie turned and shot him four times.
A jury convicted Ritchie of murder and other offenses in 2002. The trial judge imposed the death penalty.
Ritchie has spent years challenging the convictions at the state and federal level to no avail. His latest motion asks permission to raise claims that his attorney was ineffective because the lawyer failed to investigate whether Ritchie suffered from fetal alcohol spectrum disorders as well as childhood lead exposure. Ritchie also sought permission to argue that his age at the time of the shooting — he was 20 years old — should be taken into consideration.
The Supreme Court denied the request and ordered that he be executed before sunrise on May 20. Justice Geoffrey Slaughter wrote that the court couldn’t assume further evidence of Ritchie’s cognitive impairments would have swayed his jury.
Chief Justice Loretta Rush wrote in dissent that the evidence suggests Ritchie was suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder when he committed his crimes.
“We should not set a date for the most irrevocable of punishments without first ensuring that Ritchie was not denied the effective assistance of counsel,” Rush wrote.
Court records list Ritchie’s attorney as public defender Amy Karozos. She didn’t immediately respond to a message The Associated Press left on her office voicemail after hours Tuesday seeking comment on the justices’ decision.
Ritchie’s execution will be the first in the state since Joseph Corcoran was put to death by lethal injection on Dec. 18. Corcoran was convicted in the July 1997 shootings of his brother; his sister’s fiancé; and two other men.
His execution was the state’s first in 15 years, a hiatus marked by a scarcity of lethal injection drugs nationwide.
Maryland
Salvadoran fugitive convicted in deadly attack of female hiker
BEL AIR, Md. (AP) — A fugitive from El Salvador was convicted Monday in the 2023 slaying of a Maryland woman who was attacked while exercising on a popular hiking trail northeast of Baltimore.
Prosecutors alleged that Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 24, was carrying out a planned attack when he grabbed Rachel Morin off the trail, bashed her head against nearby rocks, raped her and concealed her body in a drainage culvert. Their case hinged on DNA evidence connecting him to the crime.
A jury found Martinez-Hernandez guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree rape, among other offenses, according to Randolph Rice, an attorney representing Morin’s relatives.
“The Morin family is incredibly relieved that justice was served today,” Rice said in a statement.
Martinez-Hernandez was accused of entering the United States illegally after allegedly killing another woman in his home country. Authorities also linked him to a 2023 home invasion in Los Angeles.
Morin was killed in August 2023. The act of violence sent shock waves through Bel Air, a suburban community northeast of Baltimore. It also became a political flashpoint during the 2024 presidential election campaign as Donald Trump called for increased border security and mass deportations of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
Trump posted on social media about the verdict Monday night, saying Morin’s “life was taken at the hands of a monster who should have NEVER been here in the first place” and blaming the Biden administration for failing to properly secure the border.
Martinez-Hernandez was arrested last summer in Oklahoma. He had been living in Bel Air around the time of Morin’s death, prosecutors said. They said Morin went walking or running along the same route almost every day, usually in the evenings.
Defense attorneys challenged prosecutors’ assertion that the crime was a random attack and said police simply got the wrong guy. They also asked jurors to pay close attention to unanswered questions during the trial, including questions of motive.
Detectives collected DNA from several places on Morin’s body and developed Martinez-Hernandez as a suspect, according to prosecutors. After interviewing some of his relatives, detectives matched DNA from the scene with DNA collected from socks that Martinez-Hernandez left behind when he fled Maryland.
Morin, 37, left behind five children. Her 14-year-old daughter was the first witness to testify last week, fighting back tears as she described the immediate aftermath of her mom’s disappearance.
