William Lee Thompson - Florida Death Row
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Summary of Offense:
William Thompson was convicted and sentenced to death for the March 30, 1976 kidnapping, rape and murder of Sally Ivester.
William Thompson, Rocco Surace, Barbara Savage and Sally Ivester were staying together in a motel room in Dade County. Thompson and Surace instructed the two women to call their families in order to obtain money. Both Thompson and Surace became enraged when Sally could only get $25 from her family, when she had previously claimed that she could get close to $200. At that time, Surace ordered Sally into the bedroom where he began to strike her in the face with his chain-link belt. Surace ordered Sally to take off her clothes, while Thompson systematically beat her with the chain-link belt. The two men then sodomized her with the leg of a chair and also with a nightstick. The violent ramming tore the inner lining of the vaginal wall, causing internal bleeding. Thompson and Surace burned Sally with cigarettes and lighters, forced her to eat a sanitary napkin, and lick beer off the floor. The two men then took Sally to a phone booth and ordered her to call her mother to ask for more money. After the phone call, Thompson and Surace took Sally back to the motel room where the brutal beating continued. Sally died from the injuries sustained in the assault. Barbara Savage, who was a witness to the murder of Sally Ivester, testified that she feared for her life if she tried to leave the motel during the malicious attack.
Thompson was resentenced to death for the third time in Miami-Dade County on August 25, 1989.
Co-defendant information:
Rocco Surace pled guilty to the kidnapping, rape and murder of Sally Ivester. The trial court sentenced him to death; however, the Florida Supreme Court reversed the sentence on appeal. At Surace’s retrial, Thompson testified, claiming responsibility for the entire incident and Surace was found guilty of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life and died on November 14, 1993 while in the custody of the Florida Department of Corrections.