Florida set to execute suspected serial killer once eyed for possible link to the OJ Simpson case

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A suspected serial killer once scrutinized for a possible link to the O.J. Simpson case that riveted the nation in the mid-1990s is scheduled to be executed Thursday in Florida for the murder of a woman in a Tampa motel room.

Glen Rogers, 62, is set to receive a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, barring a last-day reprieve. He was convicted in Florida of the 1995 murder of Tina Marie Cribbs, a 34-year-old mother of two he had met at a bar.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Rogers’ final appeals on Wednesday without comment.

Rogers would be the fifth inmate put to death in Florida this year. As of May 1, 15 people have been executed this year in the U.S. in eight states, according to the Death Penalty Information Center’s website. That compares with 25 people in all of 2024, the center reported.

He also drew a separate death sentence in California for the 1995 strangulation killing of Sandra Gallagher, a mother of three whom he had met at a bar in Van Nuys in that state. That killing came weeks before the Cribbs murder. Rogers was stopped after a highway chase in Kentucky while driving Cribbs’ car soon after her death.

Rogers was named as a suspect but never convicted in several other slayings around the country, once telling police he had killed about 70 people. He later recanted that statement, but had been the subject of documentaries including one from 2012 called “My Brother the Serial Killer” that featured his brother Clay and a criminal profiler who had corresponded extensively with Rogers.

The documentary raised questions about whether Rogers could have been responsible for the 1994 stabbing deaths of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.

During a 1995 murder trial that drew intense media attention, the former football star and celebrity Simpson was acquitted of all charges. Los Angeles police and prosecutors subsequently said after the documentary’s release that they didn’t think Rogers had any involvement in the Simpson and Goldman killings.

“We know who killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. We have no reason to believe that Mr. Rogers was involved,” the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement at the time.

Simpson had always professed innocence but was later found liable for the deaths in a separate civil case, and then served nine years in prison on unrelated charges. The 76-year-old Simpson died in April 2024 after battling cancer.

Rogers, originally from Hamilton, Ohio, has also been labeled the “Casanova Killer” or “Cross Country Killer” in various media reports. Some of his alleged and proven female victims had similar characteristics: ages in their 30s, a petite frame and red hair.

Rogers’ lawyers have filed several appeals with state and federal courts, none successful. One argument was that newly enacted state legislation authorizing the death penalty for trafficking in young children makes clear the abuse he suffered as a child is now taken seriously and should result in a life prison sentence for Rogers. That argument was rejected.

Florida uses a three-drug cocktail for its lethal injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Corrections Department.

Anthony Wainwright is the next Florida inmate scheduled for execution — on June 10 — under a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Wainwright, 54, was convicted of kidnapping a woman from a supermarket parking lot in Lake City in 1994 and raping and killing her.