According to the Associated Press a man who sexually assaulted and murdered an aspiring central Florida artist is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening at the Florida State Prison. Darius Kimbrough is set for execution at 6 p.m.
Now 40, Kimbrough was convicted in the 1991 slaying of Denise Collins. The 28-year-old woman was attacked in her Orlando apartment while she was sleeping.
In October, the state Supreme Court denied Kimbrough’s appeal, rejecting the argument from Kimbrough’s lawyers that he shouldn’t be executed because the jury recommendation wasn’t unanimous.
His attorneys have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A neighbor in Collins’ Orlando complex told detectives he had seen a man near Collins’ apartment near a ladder by the apartment’s balcony, and the neighbor later identified Darius Kimbrough, 19, as the man from a picture lineup. A maintenance man at the complex also said Kimbrough had watched him putting away a ladder in the complex around the time of the murder.
He was found guilty at his 1994 trial, during which experts testified that blood and semen samples taken from Collins’ bed were compatible with Kimbrough’s DNA.
Collins’ mother and sister said they plan to attend the execution.
Kimbrough’s execution will be the second during which a new drug mix is used for the lethal injection.
Florida first used the new mix during the execution of William Happ on Oct. 15.
Death row inmates in Florida are seeking to stop the use of the new drug mix, asking federal courts to declare the procedure unconstitutional. Kimbrough is not one of the plaintiffs in the suit.
Attorneys for the inmates who filed the suit say use of the sedative midazolam hydrochloride won’t prevent excruciating pain and suffering when the next two drugs are administered. Use of the mix would be a form of cruel and unusual punishment, thus violating the condemned prisoner’s right, according to the complaints.
