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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
 
 
 
 
 

Supreme Court of Florida

 
opinion 71540 opinion 80520
 
opinion SC02-2315
 
 
 
 
 
 

DC#  042143
DOB:  01/07/51

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."

 
 


Alphonso Green

 

 

 
 
 
 
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