Summary of Offense:
The body of Sandra Sutherland was discovered on the bed of her apartment around 2:00 p.m. on January 16, 1991. She had been gagged, bound, and stabbed thirteen times in the back, with all but one wound penetrating the lungs. Sutherland’s bedroom had been ransacked, the contents of her purse dumped on the floor, and her VCR was missing. Numerous fingerprints were gathered from the apartment, including prints from a piece of paper and from a jar of face cream found in the bedroom. The VCR was located at a local pawn shop. Fingerprints found at the apartment and on the VCR matched a fingerprint on a pawn shop ticket for Charles W. Finney, who had pawned the VCR for a $30 loan. When questioned by police about his whereabouts on the day of the murder, Finney told police that he was home sick and never left his apartment. When police confronted Finney with the fact that he had pawned Sutherland’s VCR, he told police that he was taking out his garbage, found the VCR, and pawned it for cash. Finney was a neighbor of Sutherland, until she moved to a different apartment in the same complex eight months prior to the murder. Finney testified that Sutherland contacted him about screening in her patio at her new apartment, and that he had been in Sutherland’s apartment to help her move boxes in the apartment.
Finney was sentenced to death in Hillsborough County on November 10, 1992.
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