TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A Tampa Bay murderer will be executed next month after a new order from Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Friday, DeSantis signed a death warrant for Samuel Smithers, a former Plant City Baptist deacon who murdered two women in 1996.

According to a letter from Florida Attorney General James Uthemeier, Smithers murdered two women, Christy Cowan and Denise Roach, whose bodies were found on a property Smithers was supposed to maintain for another woman.

"Samuel Lee Smithers met Marion Whitehurst at church and agreed to maintain the landscaping at a vacant property Whitehurst owned in Plant City," Uthmeier wrote. "The property consisted of a fenced twenty-seven acres with three ponds and a house. On May 28, 1996, Whitehurst stopped by the property to find Smithers sitting in the carpo

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