Linroy Bottoson was executed by the State of Florida for the murder of Catherine Alexander
According to court documents Linroy Bottoson would rob a postal office and then would force Catherine Alexander from the office. The woman would later be found in the trunk of a car where she was stabbed multiple times and ran over with the vehicle
Linroy Bottoson was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Linroy Bottoson was executed by lethal injection on December 9 2002
Linroy Bottoson Photos
Linroy Bottoson FAQ
When Was Linroy Bottoson Executed
Linroy Bottoson was executed on December 9 2002
Linroy Bottoson Case
Hubert Alexander said a prayer and watched intently Monday as the man who killed his mother 23 years ago was executed by injection. Following a last-day flurry of failed legal appeals, Linroy Bottoson, who believed he was locked in a battle between Satan and Jesus Christ, died at 5:12 p.m. Bottoson was condemned for the Oct. 26, 1979, murder of Catherine Alexander, who was robbed, held captive for 83 hours, stabbed 16 times and then fatally crushed by a car.
Alexander and his sister, Eunice Smith, were less than two yards away from Bottoson, who was strapped to a gurney on the other side of a window. “Nothing is going to bring my mother back,” Alexander, 78, said after the execution. “The person that did this awful thing to her is gone.” The two decades of delays and court hearings were tough on the family, said Alexander, the oldest of Catherine Alexander’s six remaining children. “They made me mad,” he said. “It made me wonder how long the state of Florida is going to put up with these things like this.
On a row behind the Alexanders sat Peter Cannon, who fought a losing battle to save Bottoson in state and federal courts, trying to prove that his client was insane and mentally retarded. He also challenged the constitutionality of Florida’s death penalty statute. Cannon appeared shaken by the execution and left the prison without commenting. The execution came two hours after Circuit Judge Anthony H. Johnson of Orlando ruled Bottoson competent. The Florida Supreme Court rejected an appeal of Johnson’s ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court also rejected a separate appeal Monday that argued Bottoson was mentally retarded. Bottoson did not make any statements before his execution. When asked if he had any last words, he said, “No sir, no.” Bottoson accepted a Valium before he was killed.
As chilly rain fell, eight persons opposed to the death penalty protested in a pasture across the highway. In the ruling that denied Bottoson another delay, Johnson agreed with state psychiatrists who found that Bottoson understood that he was about to die and the reasons for his execution, two requirements under Florida law. Dr. Wade Myers, a state psychologist, testified Monday in Orlando that while Bottoson sometimes heard God and believed if he were to stand at Alexander’s grave God would resurrect her, that did not mean Bottoson was mentally ill. “There are evangelists every Sunday who have large viewerships who say they’re also receiving the same messages from God,” Myers said. But a clinical psychologist hired by Bottoson’s lawyers issued a report saying the convict was insane and believed he was locked in a battle between Jesus and Satan.
Bottoson kidnapped Alexander, robbing her post office of $144 and 37 money orders worth $400 each. The 74-year-old woman was held captive for three days – some of that time in a car trunk – before Bottoson killed her. Bottoson was arrested after his wife tried to cash one of the money orders. Alexander’s shoes and the knife apparently used to stab her were found in Bottoson’s house. No one claimed Bottoson’s body, so it will be cremated and buried in a prison cemetery, said Sterling Ivey, a prison spokesman.
