Serial killer with Kentucky ties, executed

STARKE, Fla.  — A suspected serial killer once scrutinized for a possible link to the O.J. Simpson case that riveted the nation in the 1990s was executed Thursday in Florida for the murder of a woman found dead in a Tampa motel room.

Glen Rogers, 62, received a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke and was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m., authorities said. He was convicted in Florida of the 1995 murder of Tina Marie Cribbs, a 34-year-old mother of two he had met at a bar.

He also had drawn a separate death sentence in California for the 1995 strangulation killing of Sandra Gallagher, a mother of three whom he had met at a bar in Van Nuys in that state. That killing came weeks before the Cribbs murder. Rogers was stopped after a highway chase in Kentucky while driving Cribbs’ car soon after her death.

Glen Edward Rogers, 62, died by lethal injection on May 15 at Florida State Prison.(Florida Department of Corrections)

In a final statement, Rogers thanked his wife, who visited him earlier in the day at the prison, according to visitor logs. He also somewhat cryptically said that “in the near future, your questions will be answered” without going into detail. He also said, “President Trump, keep making America great. I’m ready to go.” Then the lethal injection began, and he lay quietly through the procedure.

The entire execution took just 16 minutes. Once it began, Rogers hardly moved, only lying still with his mouth slightly open. At one point, a staff member grasped him by the shoulders, shook him and yelled, “Rogers, Rogers” to see if he was conscious. No family members of the Florida victim spoke to the press afterwards.

Rogers, originally from Hamilton, Ohio, had also been labeled the “Casanova Killer” or “Cross Country Killer” in various media reports. Some of his alleged and proven female victims had similar characteristics: ages in their 30s, a petite frame and red hair.

Who were the victims?

Authorities connected five victims to the Casanova Killer. Four of them were mothers with reddish hair in their 30s. Three of the murders happened within a six-day period. 
-Mark Peters, a 72-year-old retired electrician in Hamilton, Ohio, with whom Rogers lived with briefly, was found dead in a shack owned by Rogers' family in January 1994 in Beattyville, Kentucky. (Rogers is a native of Hamilton, Ohio just outside Cincinnati.) 
-Sandra Gallagher, a 33-year-old mother of three, of Santa Monica, California, killed on Sept. 28, 1995 in Van Nuys. Her body was found in her burning vehicle. She had met Rogers in a bar the night of her murder. 
-Linda Price, a 34-year-old mother of two, found stabbed to death in the bathtub of her home in Jackson, Mississippi, on Nov. 3, 1995. Price briefly lived with Rogers, telling her mother: "He is my dream man," according to an archived story in the Dayton Daily News. 
-Tina Marie Cribbs, a 34-year-old mother of two, found stabbed to death in a Tampa, Florida hotel bathtub on Nov. 7, 1995. Like Gallagher, she had met Rogers at a bar on the night of her murder. 
-Andy Lou Jiles Sutton, a 37-year-old mother of four: three sons and a daughter who were 19, 17, 8, and 6 when she was found stabbed to death in her bed on Nov. 9, 1995 in of Bossier City, Louisiana. Sutton and Rogers met before her murder and are believed to have slept together. Soon after his arrest, Rogers claimed to have killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles in June 1994, and about 70 people overall. There was no evidence to back that up. 

Rogers was named as a suspect but never convicted in several other slayings around the country, once telling police he had killed about 70 people. He later recanted that statement, but had been the subject of documentaries, including one from 2012 called “My Brother the Serial Killer” that featured his brother Clay and a criminal profiler who had corresponded extensively with Rogers.

The documentary raised questions about whether Rogers could have been responsible for the 1994 stabbing deaths of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

During a 1995 murder trial that drew intense media attention, the former football star and celebrity Simpson was acquitted of all charges. Los Angeles police and prosecutors subsequently said after the documentary’s release that they didn’t think Rogers had any involvement in the Simpson and Goldman killings.

“We know who killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. We have no reason to believe that Mr. Rogers was involved,” the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement at the time.

The U.S. Supreme Court had denied Rogers’ final appeals on Wednesday without comment.

Victims’ Families React

For the families of his victims, Rogers’ death brought a measure of closure. Randy Roberson, son of Andy Lou Jiles Sutton, was just 17 when she was killed. He attended the execution and said he felt “a peace of mind.”

“I didn’t take my eyes off him,” he said. “I wish it wouldn’t have been so easy for him.”

Mary Dicke, the 84-year-old mother of Tina Cribbs, had survived brain and lung cancer with one goal — to live long enough to see justice. “God is on my side,” she said in a past interview. “I hope He will remain on my side until I do see this done.”

Jerri Vallicella, whose sister Sandra Gallagher was murdered, added: “It’s been 30 years of nightmares, and I’m ready for this to be over.”

A Troubled Life, A Violent Path

Court records painted Rogers’ life as one of early trauma and criminality. Raised in an abusive home, he turned to drugs and alcohol at a young age. His adult life included a string of jobs, including carnival work and school bus driving, before his killing spree began.

Rogers’ attorneys had attempted to halt the execution, arguing that a liver condition could cause excessive pain from the injection drugs. Appeals to both the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court were denied.

As the state closed the final chapter on one of the most notorious serial killers in recent U.S. history, the families he left behind are left to rebuild — with the hope that justice, however delayed, has finally been served.

Florida uses a three-drug cocktail for its lethal injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Corrections Department.

Rogers became the fifth inmate put to death in Florida this year.

Anthony Wainwright is the next Florida inmate scheduled for execution — on June 10 — under a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Wainwright, 54, was convicted of kidnapping a woman from a supermarket parking lot in Lake City in 1994 and raping and killing her.