Miami (AFP) – A 62-year-old man known as the “Cross-Country Killer” was executed by lethal injection in the southern US state of Florida on Thursday. Glen Rogers was put to death at 6:16 pm (2216 GMT) at the Florida State Prison in Raiford for the November 1995 murder of Tina Marie Cribbs.
The Tampa Bay Times reported his last words, wherein he cryptically referred to how his victims’ families’ questions would be answered “in the near future…and I hope in some way will bring you closure.” Then, Rogers addressed US President Donald Trump. “Keep making America great,” he said. “I’m ready to go.”
Cribbs, a 34-year-old mother of two children, was stabbed to death, and her body was found in a hotel bathtub. Rogers was also convicted of the murder in that same year of Sandra Gallagher, 33, in California and was a suspect in the murders of at least two other women, one in Mississippi and another in Louisiana.
There have now been 16 executions in the United States this year: 12 by lethal injection; two by firing squad; and two using nitrogen gas. The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place. Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and, on his first day in office, called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”
© 2024 AFP
