The decades-old story with local ties of convicted killer Robert Waterhouse has come to an end.
Despite pleas to the Florida State and U.S. Supreme Courts for a stay of execution, Waterhouse, formerly of Greenport, was pronounced dead at Florida State Prison at 8:22 p.m. on Wednesday after undergoing a lethal injection procedure mandated by Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Jan. 4., according to a report from Reuters.
Waterhouse, 65, was sentenced to life in 1967 for the 1966 rape-murder of 77-year-old Greenport resident Ella Carter. While out on lifetime parole in 1980, he raped and killed Deborah Kammerer in St. Petersburg, Fla., and was convicted of first-degree murder.
Waterhouse had been sentenced to death for the 1980 conviction, but a 1985 stay of execution was issued four days before his scheduled execution. A judge ordered that Waterhouse be resentenced in 1988 due to mitigating evidence that his rights were violated during sentencing for the 1967 conviction. Waterhouse was sentenced to death again in 1990 by a unanimous jury vote.
Waterhouse's last meal included two pork chops, two eggs cooked sunnyside up, two slices of toast, one slice of cherry pie, one pint of butter pecan ice cream, one pint of orange juice, and a pint of milk, according to the Reuters report.
He was the 72nd inmate put to death in Florida since the state resumed executions in 1979 and the fourth to be executed in the U.S. this year.
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