Deathrow inmate appealing to U.S. Supreme Court after stay of execution is denied
A former Greenport man scheduled to be executed in Florida next week lost a bid Wednesday for a stay of his execution and is now appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to a report from The Associated Press.
Robert Waterhouse, 65, is scheduled to receive lethal injection at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Mr. Waterhouse has twice been convicted of murder, including the the February 1966 rape and slaying of Greenport resident Ella May Carter. While on lifetime parole after pleading guilty and serving just eight years in prison for Ms. Carter’s death, Mr. Waterhouse was convicted of killing 29-year-old Deborah Kammerer in St. Petersburg, Fla. in January 1980. He has spent the past three decades on death row, but last month Florida Governor Rick Scott ordered his execution for Feb. 15.
The Tampa Bay Times reported last month that Mr. Waterhouse’s attorney, Robert Norgard, raised two issues at a hearing that he believed would prevent his client from getting the death penalty.
“One is that a witness has stepped forward with what he said is new information,” The Times wrote. “The other is that evidence in the case was destroyed after Waterhouse’s conviction.”
Similar arguments had been raised by Mr. Waterhouse’s attorneys in the past, also to no avail.
The Times reported Ms. Kammerer had been “raped, violated with a beer bottle and beaten so severely about the head it took police several days to identify her. A used tampon had also been shoved down her throat. Her killer dragged her to the beach alive and left her to drown in the morning surf … Mr. Waterhouse denied committing the murder, but told detectives he had tried to have sex with a woman the same night. He said he became frustrated because she had her menstrual period.”
In the local incident, Ms. Carter, a widow, was found beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled inside her home on Washington Avenue in Greenport. Her body was discovered by her nephew George Hubbard Sr.
Mr. Waterhouse, who was 19 years old at the time, had been living nearby with his aunt and uncle on Wilmarth Avenue.
The convicted killer was scheduled to be executed in 1985, but a judge ordered a stay four days before he was to be put to death, according to the Times. He has spent the past three decades on Death Row in Florida
Check suffolktimes.com Wednesday night for coverage from Florida.
