http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20081003/ARTICLE/810030333/-1/newssitemap

Execution date set for third time

By BRENT KALLESTAD THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: Friday, October 3, 2008 at 1:00 a.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, October 2, 2008 at 8:21 p.m.

TALLAHASSEE -

An execution date was set Thursday -- for the third time in two decades -- for a man who murdered a Tampa teenager more than 25 years ago.

Wayne Tompkins is now scheduled to be executed Oct. 28 at Florida State Prison for the March 1983 slaying of Lisa DeCarr, the 15-year-old daughter of his girlfriend.

Tompkins was in the Pasco County jail on unrelated rape and kidnapping charges when DeCarr's body was discovered under her mother's home 14 months after her disappearance.

Tompkins' third death warrant was signed by Gov. Charlie Crist. Through a series of appeals, Tompkins avoided execution on previous warrants signed by former Florida governors Bob Martinez in 1989 and Jeb Bush in 2001.

Tompkins, now 51, was within two weeks of being executed in 2001 before his sentence was set aside on the basis that his trial judge was predisposed to the death penalty.

It was also the third time Crist has signed a death warrant. The governor promised to resume executions beginning with those inmates who he believed committed the most heinous murders.

Florida suspended executions for nearly 18 months after a botched execution in December 2006.