Eddie Wayne Davis, from Polk County, will be the seventh execution in the State of Florida so far this year when -- at 6 p.m. today -- he's injected with midazolam hydrochloride, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.
In 1994, when Davis was 25, he was in a community development in Lakeland scrounging for some beer money. He came across an 11-year-old girl named Kimberly Waters tucked in her bed. He'd later say he didn't think anyone was inside the house he'd picked to break into, but as the Naples News points out today, that wasn't exactly true for long:
According to court documents and detectives, Davis found Kimberly sleeping in her mother's bed while her mother was working a double shift at a nursing home. He gagged her so she wouldn't wake up her 13-year-old sister in another room.Prosecutors said Davis took the 11-year-old girl to a trailer, raped her and later beat her. Kimberly fought back as Davis suffocated her by pressing plastic over her face. His DNA was found under her fingernails. When she stopped breathing, he threw her body in a commercial trash bin.
That girl's mother -- Beverly Schultz -- however, dated Davis in the past but broke up with him six months before the murder when Schultz found out about his criminal past, Davis having served time for multiple burglaries.
Davis' team of lawyers, though, pushed for their client to avoid the injection. Earlier this year in Oklahoma -- using the same three drugs Davis will digest -- the execution of Clayton Lockett had to be stopped after an hour of not finding a usable vein. Lockett, after that hour, then "raised his head, writhed on the gurney and mumbled, appearing to be in pain," according to Mother Jones. Minutes later Lockett died of a heart attack.
Davis appealed his sentence. His lawyers argued he suffers from a rare condition that would render him in unusual pain and suffering after being injected. They said such pain would violate the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Earlier this week, the Florida Supreme Court did not agree, rejecting his appeal.
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