As the state prepares to execute the first man sentenced to death in a Jacksonville since the “I-95 Killer” Gary Bowles in 2019, the Times-Union takes a look at five of the most reprehensible cases this century in Duval County.
Many people might not recall Michael Bell, who killed five people in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s and is set to be lethally injected at 6 p.m. on July 15, so we’re going to stick to the last 25 years in Jacksonville.
With 34 inmates currently on Florida’s death row for Duval County cases, all obviously involve a certain amount of vileness and contempt. So there’s no way to quantify the most sinister. These five particularly struck a chord in the community and beyond.
Donald Smith, child predator
Donald James Smith’s 2013 crime shocked and sickened the community. He started by befriending a mother and her three young children shopping on a Friday night at a Dollar General store. Smith said he had a gift card at a nearby Walmart on Lem Turner Road and could buy food and clothes for the family. While shopping, Smith offered to take one of the children, 8-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle, to the store’s McDonald’s to get them some hamburgers.
He instead whisked her away in his van. He then raped and strangled her and dumped the body in a creek bed near a church.
Police issued photos of Cherish, Smith and his van and received tips leading to him being pulled over and arrested the next morning on Interstate 95 — without the girl. Cherish’s body was found a short time later.
Smith, a registered sex offender, had been released from jail three weeks earlier in a similar scheme to lure a child to a McDonald’s and had two other child sex-related convictions.
Now 68, he’s been on death row since May 3, 2018.
David Sparre, ‘Craigslist Killer’
It took jurors about 25 minutes to decide the man who came to be known as “The Craigslist Killer” was guilty of murdering 21-year-old Tiara Pool after having sex at her Hodges Boulevard apartment.
But David Kelsey Sparre didn’t just kill her, he stabbed the 5-foot-3, 111-pound young mother 89 times. He tortured her and took pleasure in it, the lead prosecutor said at the time.
The two met in 2010 after Sparre, who was living in Georgia, answered her personal ad on Craigslist.org. Pool was having marriage problems, and her husband was deployed at sea and their children were out of town with grandparents.
Sparre later said he killed her for the “rush.”
Now 34, he’s been on death row since April 2, 2012.
Michael Jackson, ‘buried alive’ case
Prosecutors described Michael James Jackson as the mastermind of the July 2005 murders of Reggie and Carol Sumner, who were mercilessly buried alive.
Jackson’s girlfriend, Tiffany Ann Cole, knew the Sumners when they lived in South Carolina, and he hatched the robbery plan to get the couple’s bank cards and their savings.
The 61-year-old couple, both frail and sick, were kidnapped from their St. Nicholas neighborhood home in Jacksonville, bound with duct tape and left in a pre-dug grave in Charlton County, Georgia. They smothered under soil piled on them in the 4-foot-deep pit.
Through multiple hearings, appeals and sentencings, Jackson ended up with a death sentence while co-defendants Cole, Alan Wade and Bruce Nixon were sentenced to life, life and 45 years, respectively.
Now 43, Jackson has been on death row since Aug. 30, 2007.
John Mosley Jr., baby killer
Before the massive searches for children such as Somer Thompson, Haleigh Cummings and Lonzi Barton, there was Jay-Quan Mosley in 2004 — the 10-month-old was never found.
After strangling Jay-Quan’s mother, John Franklin Mosley Jr. wrapped his crying son in a garbage bag and placed him next to her body to suffocate under a tarp in his SUV while he went to work.
Lynda Wilkes, 40, had gone to meet Mosley in attempt to get him to pay child support. Nine days later, her burned body was found in a field near Waldo in Alachua County after a teen accomplice came forward. He said Jay-Quan was thrown into a trash bin behind a supermarket in Ocala. Police and volunteers then spent days searching in vain for the baby’s body in area landfills.
The teen, 15-year-old Bernard Deon Griffin, was sentenced to two years house arrest and eight years of probation after pleading guilty to two counts of accessory to murder.
Mosley, now 60, has been on death row since July 3, 2006.
Pinkney Carter, America’s most wanted
Killing three people in a domestic rage in 2002, Pinkney “Chip” Carter eluded authorities for two years — even swimming across the Rio Grande River into Mexico. The case was profiled in People magazine and “America’s Most Wanted.”
In the early morning hours, Carter snuck through the back of ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Reed’s Arlington home and shot the 35-year-old, her new boyfriend Glenn Pafford, 49, and daughter Courtney Smith, 16, all in the head. Reed’s other children — ages 6, 8 and 14 — were also home at the time.
Carter fled Jacksonville, traveling through several states before swimming to Mexico, where he was arrested for entering the country illegally. He was released by Mexican authorities after paying a fine and then disappeared again.
He was finally arrested in January 2004 in Kentucky where he was working as a roofer under the alias of Rodney Vonthun.
Now 70, Carter’s been on death row since Dec. 27, 2005.
Who else from Jacksonville is on death row?
A total of 34 inmates from Duval County cases are currently on death row, not including the “Mayport Monster” William Wells who didn’t get sentenced to death until 2021 after killing an inmate while incarcerated in the state prison in Bradford County.
(This story has been updated to add the current local death row list and gallery.)
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Bound for execution, these 5 killers haunt Jacksonville as another prepares to die
Reporting by Scott Butler, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
