Convicted Greenport murderer to be executed in Florida next month

A man convicted of killing two people, including the rape and murder of a 77-year-old Greenport woman nearly 46 years ago, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Florida next month, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

Robert Waterhouse, 65, served just eight years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder charges in the February 1966 slaying of Greenport resident Ella May Carter. Then in January 1980, while serving lifetime parole, Mr. Waterhouse killed 29-year-old Deborah Kammerer in St. Petersburg, Fla.

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, we previously reported.

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.

Florida Governor Rick Scott signed Mr. Waterhouse’s death warrant on Wednesday. He is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. Feb. 15.