Florida Executes Man For 1994 Rape, Murder Of Young Girl
Eddie Wayne Davis, convicted in 1995 of raping and murdering an 11-year-old girl, has become the seventh person executed in Florida this year.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Davis confessed, on at least three separate occasions, to the murder of Kimberly Waters. At the time of the killing, Davis was 25, but his defense team argued that he was mentally a juvenile.
The 1994 murder shook the community of Lakeland, Florida. According to CBS Local Miami, Davis had dated Kimberly’s mother. He broke into her trailer to look for beer money, according to The Huffington Post, found Kimberly sleeping, and raped her. He then took her to a nearby Moose Lodge, beat her, and suffocated her with a piece of plastic, before throwing her body in a trash receptacle.
A monsters was put to death today & the little 11yo, Kimberly Waters, is rarely mentioned, remember her, she never had a chance to grow up
— Luanna (@mamaofthreebrat) July 11, 2014
The issue of capital punishment in the United States has come under scrutiny in the past few months. According to the Washington Post, Davis was the 24th person executed in the United States this year, the first following three executions in 24 hours in June. All of this follows a horrific case from earlier in the year where a botched execution in Oklahoma resulted in an inmate being “tortured to death” (The Inquisitr).
The Columbus Dispatch reports that Davis had attempted, and failed, to stay his execution by arguing that he had a blood condition, porphyria, that could cause him to have a painful reaction to one of the three drugs used in the “cocktail” that Florida uses in its lethal injections. However, Davis is not reported to have shown any pain or distress following the injection.
Kimberly’s grandmother, Mary Hobbs, was in attendance at the execution, according to the Daily Mail. She was there on behalf of Kimberly and her daughter, Kimberly’s mother, who died in a motorcycle crash years ago.
“I need to be there to represent my daughter and my granddaughter. My daughter never lived to see this happen and that just breaks my heart.”
Before his execution, Davis was calm. He met with his mother and a clergyman and ate his last meal. He did not issue a final statement.
According to Amnesty International, 39 people were executed in the United States in 2013; Florida executed seven (and has already executed the same number so far this year), and Texas had the most executions, with 16.
[Image source: WBTW]
