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Alphonso GREEN
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Convicted
rapist
Number of victims: 2
Date of murder: October 10,
1986
Date of arrest:
Next day (surrenders)
Date of birth: January 7,
1951
Victims profile: Robert
J. Nichols, 77, and his wife Dora, 72
(his landlords)
Method of murder: Stabbing
with knife
Location: Hillsborough County, Florida, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on October 23, 1987.
Died in prison on September 2009
Thirteenth Judicial Circuit,
Hillsborough County Case # 86-14233
Sentencing Judge: The Honorable
William Fuente
Attorney, Trial: Stuart Umbarger – Private
Attorney, Resentencing: Daniel
M. Hernandez – Private
Attorney, Direct Appeal: Robert
Moeller – Assistant Public Defender
Date of Offense: 10/10/86
Date of Sentence: 10/23/87
Date or Resentence: 10/03/02
Circumstances of Offense:
Alphonso Green lived in a duplex
apartment in Hillsborough County that was rented from Robert and Dora
Nichols.
On 10/01/86, an eviction notice was posted in Green’s
apartment. Green and the Nichols’s agreed that, in order to stay in the
apartment, the $250 in unpaid rent must be paid by 10/10/86.
On the evening of 10/10/86,
Green paid the $250 in rent. Sometime before midnight, Green went back
to the Nichols’s, armed with a large butcher knife, and knocked on the
Nichols’s door.
Mr. Nichols let Green in the door, at which point he
asked for his rent check back. Mrs. Nichols refused and Green stabbed
her. Mr. Nichols fled to the bedroom, but Green followed him and
stabbed him, as well.
Green fled the scene, returned
to his apartment, changed clothes, and hitched a ride out of town.
After Green fled the scene, neighbors of the Nichols’s responded to the
noises coming from the home.
Mrs. Nichols was found in the foyer and
had been stabbed fourteen times. Mr. Nichols was found in the bedroom,
with bed covers stuffed in his mouth, and had been stabbed twenty-eight
times. Blood smears were found throughout the house, as well as on the
entrance railing, doors, handles, and gate outside the house.
Green hitched a ride to St.
Petersburg and then Ft. Lauderdale. A day after the murders, Green
surrendered to police, and during police questioning, he admitted to the
murders.
Prior Incarceration History in
the State of Florida:
Offense Date
Offense
Sentence Date
County
Prison Sentence Length
05/24/1974
Sexual Battery
05/24/1974
Hillsborough
Sentenced to life
Trial Summary:
10/29/86 Indicted as follows:
Count I: First-Degree
Murder (Dora Nichols)
Count II: First-Degree
Murder (Robert Nichols)
09/16/87 Jury returned guilty verdicts on both counts of the
indictment.
Jury recommended death by a vote of 12-0
10/23/87 Sentenced as follows:
Count I: First-Degree
Murder (Dora Nichols) – Death
Count II: First-Degree
Murder (Robert Nichols) – Death
02/14/02 Jury recommended death by a vote of 10-2
10/03/02 Resentenced to death
Case Information:
Green filed a Direct Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on 12/07/87,
citing the following errors: allowing improper racially discriminatory
peremptory challenges and relying on unproven aggravating factors. On
06/06/91, the FSC affirmed the convictions and sentences.
Green filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme
Court on 11/21/91 that was denied on 02/24/92.
Green filed a 3.850 Motion with the Circuit Court on 06/02/93 and amended the
Motion on 11/18/94, 08/14/98, and 04/09/99. On 04/03/00, the attorneys
stipulated to a new penalty phase, due to ineffective assistance of
trial counsel.
Green filed a Direct
Appeal with the Florida Supreme Court on 10/25/02, citing the following
errors: failing to properly answer a jury question during deliberations,
failing to issue written findings of fact after orally sentencing Green
in 1987, finding the aggravating factors of pecuniary gain and murder
committed during a burglary, and using an unconstitutional sentencing
statute.
On
04/28/05, the FSC affirmed the death sentences.
Green filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme
Court on 10/05/05 that was denied on 12/12/05.
FloridaCapitalCases.state.fl.us
Alphonso Green,
on death row for two murders in Tampa, dies of cancer
By Jessice Vander
Velde - TampaBay.com
Sunday, September 6, 2009
TAMPA — Patricia Anderson waited 23 years for
Alphonso Green to die.
Green stabbed Anderson's parents to death in 1986
while high on crack, and although it took a jury only two hours to find
him guilty — and just 10 minutes to recommend the death penalty — 23
years later he was still alive.
All of his direct appeals were exhausted, but Green,
58, was seeking to be released on the grounds that his attorney had been
ineffective, said Assistant State Attorney Chris Moody. An execution
date had not been set.
But on Friday, Anderson, 70, answered the phone at
her Tampa house and was shocked when a state official told her Green had
passed away.
He died of natural causes early Thursday at the Union
Correctional Institution in Raiford, according to the Florida Department
of Corrections.
Spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger wouldn't discuss Green's
medical history because of privacy laws, but Moody and Anderson said
Green had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.
Anderson was relieved to hear that Green died.
"It was something I wanted to hear for a long time,"
she said.
Late on the night of Oct. 10, 1986, Green, then 35,
went to the Tampa house of Robert J. Nichols, 77, and Dora V. Nichols,
72, to take back a $250 check from his landlords. He wanted the money to
buy more crack. He used a butcher knife to murder the couple as they
tried to escape. Neighbors could hear the couple pleading, "Please,
don't do this."
"I'm going to try to just put that chapter behind me
and get him out of my life," Anderson said. "But I can never get over
losing my parents."
