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Thread: Keith Earl Davis Sentenced to LWOP in 2016 FL Murder of 53-Year-Old William Leslie McGoff

  1. #1
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    Keith Earl Davis Sentenced to LWOP in 2016 FL Murder of 53-Year-Old William Leslie McGoff


    William Leslie McGoff




    December 16, 2016

    Suspect in murder of beloved Tampa nurse caught in Louisiana

    TAMPA, Fla. - Keith Earl Davis, the suspect in the Dec. 11 murder of a Tampa man, has been caught in Sulphur, Louisiana, a small town near the Texas border.

    Davis, who fled from Tampa in the victim's car after the murder, was arrested without incident. Tampa Police detectives are headed to Louisiana to bring Davis back to Tampa to face charges of 1st degree murder, robbery, and grand theft.

    Tampa police have issued a warrant for a Tampa man who they say murdered a beloved hospice nurse on December 11, 2016.

    Keith Earl Davis, 43, allegedly robbed and killed William Leslie McGoff in McGoff's home and drove off with his car.

    Police say Davis is believed to have taken the car out of the state.

    The car is a black 2013 Hyundai Sonata with Florida tag 113VFT. If you see this vehicle you are asked to call 911 immediately.

    Police say the Hyundai has been spotted in north Florida and Louisiana with a person that matches Davis' description.

    "Please, I would beg anyone who knows any information at all, or if they see this car to report it to the Tampa Police Department," said McGoff's sister, Mary Narmore. "They're working so hard to get justice for Leslie and that would be our hope."

    Davis faces multiple charges, including first degree murder, robbery with a weapon and grand theft.

    Davis has a criminal past. He was released from prison in 2015 and his local arrest record includes grand theft, robbery and aggravated battery with great bodily harm.

    http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/lo...ed-tampa-nurse
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Edited:

    Is Hillsborough's new top prosecutor anti-death penalty? The answer might surprise you


    Warren says his office is reviewing "from scratch" about 20 death penalty cases he inherited to make a fresh decision in each one. He calls a death sentence "the most serious and sobering component of our criminal justice system. The most important thing to me is that, as a society, we get it right."

    In fact, he has already decided that death is appropriate for Steven Lorenzo, implicated in the horrific slayings of 2 men used as sex slaves. His office will also seek death for Keith Earl Davis, charged with murder in the death of nurse William Leslie McGoff.

    Warren is still the new guy in a courthouse where lawyers and judges grew up together and police hold sway. But he seems more comfortable in the chair every day.

    (Source: tampabay.com)
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  3. #3
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    On eve of trial, guilty plea ensures life sentence in Tampa nurse’s slaying

    Keith Earl Davis pleaded guilty to a murder charge. In exchange, prosecutors dropped pursuit of the death penalty

    By Dan Sullivan
    Tampa Bay Times

    TAMPA — For four years, the death penalty loomed over Keith Earl Davis as he awaited trial for the torturous 2016 slaying of William McGoff, a registered nurse who was found dead in a Tampa home.

    On Monday, days before he was to face trial, the case ended quietly with a promise that Davis will die in prison, but not by execution.

    In a last-minute deal with prosecutors, Davis, 47, quietly admitted that he killed McGoff. In exchange, the state dropped its pursuit of the death penalty, ensuring a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Davis also pleaded guilty to robbery and grand theft charges, receiving sentences of 30 and five years, respectively.

    He offered no apology. His only words in the hourlong hearing were brief responses to standard questions from Hillsborough Circuit Judge Samantha Ward about whether he understood the consequences of his guilty plea.

    The plea punctuated a long-running case that was notable for being the first in which Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren had sought capital punishment upon taking office in January 2017.

    Afterward, Warren said his office had been prepared to ask a jury to recommend death, and that he considered Davis’s case to be among “the worst of the worst.”

    But he called the life sentence the right outcome, noting that it spares McGoff’s loved ones the emotional anguish of a trial, and possibly years of appeals.

    “With today’s plea, we guarantee justice and accountability, and no appeals or technicalities can take that away,” Warren said.

    McGoff’s sister and best friend both spoke of the pain the crime had inflicted, and the void it had left in the lives of so many people who loved him.

    But they expressed little vengeance. Instead, their voices filled the courtroom with memories of a big man with a big heart.

    Known as Leslie, McGoff was a registered nurse for three decades. He worked for LifePath Hospice when he died. He was a caregiver who liked to make people laugh, they said, and he used his humor to distract patients from their physical pain. He was known to dance with a mop — or a coworker.

    A recovering addict, he’d achieved a full decade of sobriety and helped others in Narcotics Anonymous.

    Mary Scannell, his best friend, said when she met him it was the first time she felt she wasn’t alone.

    “Helping others feel included and safe was Leslie’s superpower,” she said.

    He opened his home to the downtrodden — people who’d lost their homes and families to addiction, according to his sister, Mary Narmore.

    He loved to cook and, at Thanksgiving, he prepared enough food to feed legions.

    “He usually fed around 75 people a year at his own expense,” Narmore said. “Leslie’s life was cut short, and his death left so many things unfinished.”

    He lived alone in a house on Chariton Avenue in the Wellswood area of Tampa. Friends went there with Tampa police on Dec. 12, 2016, after he didn’t show up to work.

    They found the home ransacked. They found McGoff’s body in a bedroom. He was nude. Hi, neck, wrists and ankles were bound with wire. Stab wounds marked his upper body. A pillowcase had been shoved in his throat.

    His wallet, cellphone, and other items were missing. His car, a black 2013 Hyundai Sonata, was also gone.

    Detectives reviewed his cellphone records and found one of the last phone numbers he’d connected with was one that belonged to Davis. Financial records revealed that McGoff’s credit card had been used to pay for gasoline in the days after his death at stations
    in northern Florida and Mississippi. Surveillance images from one store showed a person who resembled Davis pulling a black car up to a gas pump and getting out of the vehicle.

    A woman described in court records as Davis’ ex-girlfriend told police he’d stayed at her home in the days before the killing, but Davis left on a bicycle the afternoon of Dec. 11. She later received a text message from his phone.

    “I tried to rob someone and he bucked the robbery,” it read. “I had to stab him.”

    The woman said Davis later came back to her home in a black car. He was crying, she said, and he told her McGoff was dead. He collected his belongings in a duffel bag and left again.

    The car was found abandoned with an empty gas tank on Dec. 16, 2016, in east Texas. Police in nearby Sulphur, La., found and arrested Davis. His DNA and fingerprints were found in McGoff’s house and car.

    Davis served multiple stints in state prison before he was accused of the slaying. His last release was almost exactly a year earlier, after serving four years for a series of theft-related convictions. His criminal history was one of several aggravating circumstances Warren’s office cited in pursuing the death penalty, along with the heinousness and cruelty of the killing, and the fact that it occurred during a robbery.

    In court, Scannell opined that McGoff would have been forgiving.

    “The one person whose life was so brutally taken is the same person who would be advocating for forgiveness for this butcher,” Scannell said in court.

    https://www.tampabay.com/news/tampa/...urses-slaying/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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