Florida corrections officials on Tuesday executed a 65-year-old man for the 1989 murder of an Ohio mother and her two daughters in a case that rocked Tampa Bay for years.
Oba Chandler was pronounced dead at 4:25 p.m., after being administered a lethal combination of drugs at Florida State Prison near Starke.
Chandler was convicted and sentenced to death in 1994.
A Tampa area aluminum contractor, Chandler killed Joan Rogers, then 36, and her daughters Michelle, 17, Christe, 14 who were traveling back to Willshire, Ohio following a trip to Disney World. The trio had met Chandler in Tampa, where they had asked him for directions after getting lost in search of their hotel.
The three bodies, bound, gagged and naked below the waist, were found floating in Tampa Bay three days after they went missing June 1.
The cold case was reopened after investigators found new evidence including a palm print and a handwriting sample found on a brochure in Rogers’ car.
Local officials posted billboards in the Tampa Bay area showing the distinctive handwriting, which led to Chandler’s arrest in 1992.
Chandler was the 71st inmate to be put to death since Florida resumed executions in the 1970s and the second to die this year.
