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Oba Chandler (October
11, 1946 – November 15, 2011) was an American man convicted and executed for
the June 1989 triple murders of Joan Rogers and her two daughters, whose bodies
were found floating in Tampa Bay, Florida, with their hands and feet bound.
Concrete blocks had been tied to their necks and duct tape placed over their
mouths. Autopsies showed the victims had been thrown into the water while still
alive. The case became high-profile in 1992 when police posted billboards
showing enlargements of samples of an unknown suspect's handwriting, which were
found on a pamphlet in the victims' car. Chandler was identified as the killer
when his neighbor recognized the writing. This was the first such use of
billboards by police in the US and they became useful tools in later searches
for missing people.
Prior to his arrest, Chandler worked as an aluminum
building contractor. He testified in his own defense against the advice of his
attorneys and said that he had met the Ohio women and had given them
directions, but said he never saw them again aside from in newspaper coverage
and on the billboards set up by investigators. Police originally theorized that
two men were involved in the murders of the Rogers women, but this was
discounted once Chandler was arrested. Following his conviction, Chandler was
incarcerated at Union Correctional Institution, and during his 17 years of
incarceration until his execution, he was notable as not having had a single
visitor.
On October 10, 2011, Florida Governor Rick Scott
signed a death warrant for Chandler, whose execution was set for November 15,
2011, at 4:00 pm. Chandler was executed with a lethal injection and was
pronounced dead just after 4:25 pm. He wrote a last statement to prison
officials which said, "You are killing a (sic) innocent man
today"; it was read out at a post-execution news conference.
In February 2014 DNA evidence identified Oba
Chandler as the murderer of Ivelisse Berrios-Beguerisse, who was found dead in
Coral Springs on November 27, 1990.
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