Florida set to execute inmate James Phillip Barnes in nurse's 1988 hammer killing
Florida is preparing to execute a man convicted of strangling his wife and brutally murdering another woman years earlier ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Florida is preparing to execute a man convicted of strangling his wife and brutally murdering another woman years earlier — a lethal injection that's expected to proceed on schedule after he dropped all legal appeals and said he wants to accept his punishment. James Phillip Barnes, 61, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Thursday at Florida State Prison in Starke. He would be the fifth person put to death in the state this year. Barnes was serving a life sentence for the 1997 strangulation of his wife, 44-year-old Linda Barnes, when he wrote letters in 2005 to a state prosecutor claiming responsibility for the killing years earlier of Patricia “Patsy” Miller, a nurse who lived in a condominium in Melbourne, along Florida's east coast. Barnes represented himself in court hearings where he offered no defense, pleaded g...