Facts of the Crime:

John Mosley had a son, Jay-Quan, with Lynda Wilkes although he was married to another woman at the time. In order to receive Medicaid benefits, Wilkes was required to establish the paternity of her son. Mosley refused to take the paternity test and was ordered to pay for child support. Prior to the murder of Wilkes and Jay-Quan, Mosley had asked Bernard Griffin, a fifteen-year-old acquaintance, if he would consider killing a baby and provided details, but Griffin refused.

On April 21, 2004, Mosley asked Wilkes if he could take his son to purchase new clothes. On April 22, 2004, they met at J.C. Penny. Mosley then put them both in his Suburban and picked up Griffin. They accompanied Mosley on a drive, which ended on an unfrequented road in Jacksonville. Mosley then strangled Wilkes to death, placed a bag over her head, and put her in the back of his car. He also placed Jay-Quan in a garbage bag next to his mother, and covered their bodies with a tarp. At the time of interrogation, Griffin reported that baby had stopped crying stopped shortly after it was put in the bag. Mosley dropped Griffin off, and then went to his job.

Around 11:00 p.m., Mosley left work to pick up Griffin. Griffin commented that Mosley’s car had a foul smell. His comment led Mosley to drive outside of Jacksonville, south of Waldo, to get rid of Wilkes’ body. On a dirt road, Mosley poured lighter fluid on the body and lit it on fire. He then drove to Ocala to dump Jay-Quan’s body in a dumpster behind a Winn-Dixie grocery store. Television reports regarding Wilkes’ case prompted Griffin to tell his mother that he knew about the murder. He spoke with the police and showed them where Wilkes and Jay-Quan were killed and disposed of. They found and recovered Wilkes’ burned body. Using Wilkes’ watch, which had stopped at 2:29—it was unknown whether the watch stopped during the morning or evening—the police matched that time with a phone call that was made at 2:24 a.m. from Mosley’s cell phone. The antenna used for the call was located near Wilkes’ body. The medical examiner was also able to link blood found in Mosley’s Suburban to Wilkes’. He ascertained that she had been strangled to death, because blood from her nose and mouth had a pinkish color. The police were unable to find the baby’s body.

Mosley was sentenced to death in Duval County on June 30, 2006.