Summary of Offense:

Frederick Cummings-El was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his former girlfriend Kathy Good. Frederick Cummings-El and Kathy Good had dated and lived together for several months before the relationship ended. Cummings-El continued to harass Good, and after he assaulted her at a neighbor’s house, she secured a restraining order against him. Cummings-El continually made verbal threats towards Good, stating, “Kathy, I am going to kill you. Kathy, I am going to kill you” and “I love her. If I can’t have her, nobody can have her.”

In the early morning of September 16, 1991, Cummings-El broke into the Good residence. He entered Good’s room and stabbed her numerous times while she lay sleeping. Good’s eight-year-old son, who was sleeping next to her, awoke to the sound of his mother’s screams and saw Cummings-El “punching” her. Good’s twenty-year-old nephew was asleep on the floor of her bedroom and reported seeing Cummings-El leaving the scene. As he was fleeing, Good’s mother confronted Cummings-El in the corridor, and he pushed her to the ground in his escape. Good, wounded and bleeding, stumbled from her bedroom and fell into her mother’s arms, saying “Fred, Fred.” Medical examiners concluded that Good died from the numerous stab wounds she endured. Her lungs filled with fluid, and she essentially drowned in her own blood. She remained conscious for several minutes following the attack and reportedly kept asking what was taking the emergency medical personnel so long. Frederick Cummings-El was apprehended and charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery. He was convicted and sentenced to death.

Cummings-El was sentenced to death in Miami-Dade County on February 19, 1993.