TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) -- A man nicknamed the "Deacon of Death" is scheduled to be executed Tuesday evening, nearly 30 years after committing two brutal murders in Plant City.

Samuel Smithers, now 72, was a church deacon when he murdered Christie Cowan and Denise Roach in 1996.

Investigators said he paid both women for sex, then killed them and dumped their bodies in a pond in Plant City.

At the time, Craig Latimer, who is now the Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections, was a lieutenant with the Sheriff's Office who helped investigate the case.

"What do you define a serial killer as?" Latimer recalled after the initial arrest. "We've got two bodies here. This subject killed two individuals over a 10-day period."

Smithers was sentenced to death in 1999 and has remained on death row ev

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