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Thread: Death Penalty Pursued for Amos Earl Robinson / Abron Scott Sentenced in 1983 FL Slaying of Barbara Grams and Linda Lansen

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    Death Penalty Pursued for Amos Earl Robinson / Abron Scott Sentenced in 1983 FL Slaying of Barbara Grams and Linda Lansen


    A photo combination showing Abron Scott and Amos Robinson, who are accused of murdering and raping Barbara Grams (second to right) and Linda Lansen in 1983. (Hillsborough County state attorney )



    Florida serial killers charged in a pair of 1983 rape and murder cold cases

    The true killers were only identified after Robert DuBoise was exonerated for Grams' rape and murder

    By Rebecca Rosenberg
    Fox News

    A pair of serial killers were indicted Thursday for the 1983 cold case rapes and murders of two women in Tampa, Florida - after an innocent man was exonerated, authorities announced.

    Amos Robinson, 58, and Abron Scott, 57, who are serving life sentences for another murder, are now charged in the gruesome killings of Barbara Grams, 19, and Linda Lansen, 41.

    "We now know these two men carried out a sinister spree of rape and murder in Tampa Bay in the summer and fall of 1983," said Andrew Warren, whom Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended earlier Thursday as the state attorney for Hillsborough County.

    Two years ago, Tampa’s Conviction Review Unit located DNA evidence from a rape kit that led to the exoneration of Robert DuBoise, who had wrongfully served 37 years in prison for the slaying of Grams.

    The only evidence placing him at the scene was a supposed bite mark on Grams' face that an expert claimed matched his teeth.

    Bite-mark analysis has since been broadly rejected in the scientific community as unreliable.

    Officials submitted the DNA sample found on Grams’ body to a national database, and Robinson and Scott were matches. Investigators also tied the two men to the unsolved murder of Lansen through a DNA sample found in her rape kit.

    Robinson and Scott are currently serving life sentences for kidnapping and beating Carlos Orellana — then running him over with his own car on Oct. 22, 1983. But their wave of human destruction began months earlier.

    "In July, Linda Lansen was found at the end of Memorial Highway in Town and County. She had been raped, shot in the head and dumped in the bushes," Warren said at a press conference. "In August, Barbara Grams was found behind a dental office in Tampa Heights. She had been beaten to death and raped."

    Robinson and another man were charged in 1991 for the beating death of Hermenia Castro on Sept. 5, 1983, in Tampa, but the case never went to trial.

    Even in prison, Robinson has continued to indulge his homicidal impulses, killing two fellow inmates, authorities said.

    Lansen was a freelance photographer from New York who had moved to Tampa as adult. Her niece, Linda Sheffield, said that even after nearly 40 years there is a still a profound void.

    "I miss her very much every day," she said, wiping away tears. "Today I still have pictures of her all over my house. I have her paintings. She was an excellent artist as well as photographer."

    Lansen taught Sheffield how to count to 100, how to put on makeup. "These two men not only robbed me, but they robbed a 7-year-old little girl of her mother," she said.

    The victim's daughter chose not to speak, but Warren read a statement on her behalf thanking investigators for their work.

    "For me the loss of my beautiful mother will remain a waking nightmare," she wrote.

    The investigation was a collaboration of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Tampa Police Department and the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.

    Matteo Cina contributed to this report.

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-s...der-cold-cases
    "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

  2. #2
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    2 men accused of rape, murder in Tampa cold case plead not guilty

    DNA samples from 1983 rape kits were used to identify the two men in the case, suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said

    By Jordan Highsmith
    WTSP News

    TAMPA, Fla — Two men who are already serving life prison sentences for other crimes pleaded not guilty in the cold case murder of Barbara Grams in 1983, according to court documents.

    The not guilty pleas from each man come after suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren announced during a news conference on Aug. 4 that DNA samples of both Amos Robinson, now 59, and Abron Scott, now 57, pointed law enforcement officials to the two men in the death of Grams.

    In addition, the two men are also responsible for the 1983 rape and murder of another woman named Linda Lansen, Warren said. He added that the two men committed a spree of rapes that year.

    During a 1:30 p.m. arraignment, Scott entered a not guilty plea on Aug. 15, according to court records. Robinson also pleaded not guilty the same day during his arraignment.

    A motion was also filed by the Law Office of Julianne M. Holt Public Defender to withdraw from representing Scott and appoint the Office of Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel to represent him due to a conflict of interest since the public defender also represents the co-defendant.

    Scott's next court date is set for Sept. 1 for disposition.

    Robinson is currently serving three life sentences in the Florida Department of Corrections. His criminal history includes first-degree murder, kidnapping, two counts of robbery, second-degree murder and third-degree murder. In addition, he's killed two prison inmates.

    Scott is serving one life sentence in the Department of Corrections as well with a background showing first-degree murder, kidnapping, two counts of robbery and burglary.

    https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/cr...f-197b11521efc
    "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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    Tampa prosecutors seek death penalty in 1983 murders

    Amos Robinson and Abron Scott were charged in August with the murders of Barbara Grams and Linda Lansen.

    By Dan Sullivan Times staff

    TAMPA — Hillsborough prosecutors will seek the death penalty against two men accused in a pair of 1983 murders, one of which resulted in another man’s wrongful conviction and imprisonment for 37 years.

    The office of acting Hillsborough State Attorney Susan Lopez late last month filed written notices of intent to seek capital punishment for Amos Robinson and Abron Scott. They were charged in August with the slayings of Linda Lansen and Barbara Grams, who were both killed in the summer of 1983.

    The new charges came two years after the office’s conviction review unit, created by former State Attorney Andrew Warren, determined that Robert DuBoise had been wrongfully convicted for Grams’ murder. Indictments against Robinson and Scott came the same day that Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Warren from office and appointed Lopez to replace him.

    DuBoise’s exoneration prompted a renewed investigation that identified the pair as suspects. Both are already serving life sentences in Florida prisons for a Pinellas County murder that occurred the same year.

    Grams, 19, was attacked as she walked home late one night that August from her job at a Tampa shopping mall. She was found beaten to death behind a dentist office on N Boulevard.

    Investigators identified a wound on her cheek as a bite mark. A forensic dentist, Richard Souviron, later opined that the mark was consistent with a model of DuBoise’s teeth. Bite mark analysis in recent years has come to be largely discredited.

    A 2020 review of DuBoise’s case revealed DNA samples from a rape kit taken from Grams.

    The DNA did not match DuBoise. It did match Robinson and Scott, prosecutors said.

    Both men were convicted in the 1980s for the murder of Carlos Orellana. He was attacked and beaten as he left a bar on W Kennedy Boulevard in Tampa one night in October 1983. He was forced into his car, then driven to an isolated area of Oldsmar, where he was run over.

    Robinson and Scott were sentenced to death in that case. But their sentences were later reduced to life.

    The renewed investigation also linked them to the slaying of Lansen. The 41-year-old freelance photographer was last seen leaving her apartment near Sligh Avenue and Rowlett Park Drive the night of July 10, 1983. She was found the next morning by a Town ‘N Country road. She had been shot to death. Her murder remained unsolved for nearly four decades.

    The cases are the third time Lopez has authorized pursuit of the death penalty since taking office two months ago.

    On her second day in office, she reversed a decision by Warren to not seek death against Matthew Terry, who awaits trial for the fatal stabbing of his former girlfriend, elementary school teacher Kay Baker, in Ruskin. Lopez later authorized pursuit of the death penalty against Ronny Tremel Walker, who is accused in the May shooting of 14-year-old Nilexia Alexander.

    https://www.tampabay.com/news/hillsb...outputType=amp
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    40 years later, a guilty plea to 2 Tampa murders

    Abron Scott admitted his role in the separate 1983 murders of Linda Lansen and Barbara Grams

    By Dan Sullivan
    Tampa Bay Times

    TAMPA — One of two men charged with the random murders of two Tampa women in 1983 pleaded guilty Wednesday to both killings in exchange for his third and fourth life sentences.

    Abron Scott, 58, admitted to his role in the murders of Linda Lansen and Barbara Grams, according to court records. The plea deal, state prosecutors said, included a provision wherein Scott agreed to testify against his co-defendant, Amos Robinson, who still awaits trial.

    It is a case that may not have surfaced but for the exoneration of an innocent man.

    Robert DuBoise was wrongfully convicted for the murder of Grams and spent 37 years in prison before a review of his case pointed to Robinson and Scott.

    Grams, 19, was attacked one night in August 1983 as she walked home from her job in a Tampa shopping mall. Police identified a wound to her left cheek as a human bite mark. They collected bite samples from suspects, hoping to link the killer’s teeth to the mark.

    DuBoise, then 18 and known to frequent the neighborhood near where the murder occurred, was one of dozens of men who provided bite samples. A dentist later opined that DuBoise’s teeth were a match. No other physical evidence linked him to the crime. He was convicted in 1985. Although a jury recommended life in prison, Judge Harry Lee Coe III, who was known as “Hangin’ Harry,” sentenced DuBoise to die.

    His sentence was reduced to life in prison three years later. In the decades since, bite mark analysis came to be regarded as a highly subjective, unscientific and unreliable form of evidence. It has been cited as a factor in more than 30 wrongful convictions nationwide.

    DuBoise obtained the help of the Innocence Project, the New York legal organization that works to root out wrongful convictions. They sent a petition to the conviction review unit in the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office.

    In 2020, the unit located old biological samples taken during a rape exam of Grams, which were stored in the Hillsborough Medical Examiner’s Office. Tests of those slides revealed DNA that did not match DuBoise.

    When uploaded to a national database, the DNA yielded a match to Robinson, who along with Scott was already in prison for a different murder that occurred in October 1983. In that case, both men admitted taking part in the murder of Carlos Orellana, who was attacked as he left a Kennedy Boulevard nightclub. They forced Orellana into his car, then drove him to a remote area of Oldsmar, where he was run over.

    Further DNA testing also linked Scott to the Grams murder. He and Robinson were 18 and 20, respectively, in 1983.

    Thereafter, a review of other unsolved cases from the same era led to the pair’s indictment for the killing of Lansen, 41, whose case was long unsolved.

    A freelance photographer, she left her Tampa apartment one night in July 1983 and never returned. Her body was found the next day in weeds at a dead-end of old Memorial Highway in Town ‘N Country. She’d been shot multiple times in her head with a small-caliber gun.

    Advanced DNA testing linked Robinson and Scott to Lansen’s killing.

    DuBoise was released from prison in 2020. Two years later, a grand jury issued indictments against Scott and Robinson for the murders of Grams and Lansen. The indictments came, coincidentally, the same day Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended then-State Attorney Andrew Warren from office.

    Last month, the Tampa City Council agreed to give DuBoise $14 million to settle a lawsuit he brought against the city for his wrongful conviction.

    Robinson remains charged and still awaits trial in the Grams and Lansen murders. In addition to the life sentence he is serving for his role in Orellana’s murder, Robinson has two additional life sentences for the murders of two men he killed in Florida’s prison system.

    If he’s found guilty in the Grams and Lansen cases, prosecutors have said they will seek a death sentence.

    https://www.tampabay.com/news/hillsb...tampa-murders/
    "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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