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'Deacon of Death' loses appeal in murders of Tampa prostitutes

Tampa Tribune file photo (1999)

Sam Smithers, convicted of killing two prostitutes, sits in court during the start of the penalty phase of his trial in January, 1999.

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By DAVE NICHOLSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 16, 2009

PLANT CITY - A former Baptist deacon has lost an appeal of his death sentences for the sensational 1996 murders of two Tampa prostitutes.

The Florida Supreme Court refused to overturn lower court rulings to vacate the convictions of 56-year-old Samuel L. Smithers, who was condemned for the brutal killings of Christy Elizabeth Cowan and Denise Elaine Roach. The women, both mothers, were picked up in a seedy area of East Tampa and killed at a Plant City home where Smithers was the caretaker.

Smithers was a deacon and groundskeeper at First Baptist Church of Plant City. The sensational killings and trial inspired a book, "Deacon of Death," by former New York Times columnist Fred Rosen.

The high court denied that Smithers' appeals warranted overturning his first-degree murder convictions. Among other things, he complained that his trial lawyer was ineffective for not challenging a portion of his confession that he beat Roach more severely because she was black. He also claimed his lawyer erred in not adequately investigating claims that he was mentally ill and failed to call an independent medical examiner to refute the possibility that Cowan may have been conscious during much of her horrific attack.

Smithers, an electrician's helper, was convicted in December 1998 of two counts of first-degree murder. In June 1999, Circuit Judge William Fuente accepted the jury's recommendation and sentenced Smithers to death. Fuente said the murders were "extremely torturous" to the victims.

When he was arrested, Smithers confessed to the murders, saying he fought with the women over money. He told Hillsborough County sheriff's detectives he beat Cowan in the head with an ax and hoe, then threw her, still breathing, into a pond where he had earlier dumped Roach's body.

The pond was on property owned by Marian Whitehurst, an elementary school teacher.

Whitehurst alerted law enforcement officers to the crimes. She said that on a visit to the property she came upon a puddle of blood and saw Smithers washing off a long-handled ax. She was skeptical of Smithers' story that the blood might have come from a squirrel and called deputies, who found the bodies.

Smithers changed his story at trial, testifying he was paid to let a mysterious bearded man use the property for drug-related activities. He said he watched as the women were murdered, and was ordered to drag their bodies into the pond.

Smithers told the jury he lied to investigators to protect his then-wife of 23 years and college-age son, whose lives had been threatened by the drug dealer.

Friends and family portrayed Smithers as a deeply religious man who lived quietly in the Walden Lake subdivision.

But prosecutors said there was a dark side to Smithers. They said he drove his pickup truck to a Hillsborough Avenue motel, picked up 24-year-old Roach and took her to Whitehurst's unoccupied property near Plant City. There, he smashed her in the face, choked her and stabbed her repeatedly in the skull with a sharp weapon.

Within two weeks, he murdered again. This time, his victim was Cowan, 31.

Connecticut-born Cowan and Jamaica-born Roach each had two children.

Rosen's book on the Smither's case came a few years after he wrote his best-selling true-crime book, "Lobster Boy." The story is set in Gibsonton, the winter home of many carnival performers.

That book delved into the murder-for-hire of a sideshow performer whose hands and feet were so deformed they looked like lobster claws.

Reporter Dave Nicholson can be reached at (813) 627-4727.

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