The 61-year-old James Phillip Barnes will be Florida’s sixth prisoner to die via lethal injection this year.
Florida Republican governor Ron DeSantis executed a man after he admitted to raping and killing a nurse in Brevard County in 1988.
The execution of James Phillip Barnes, 61, is set for August 3 with DeSantis’ approval, according to FOX 13. Barnes was given the death penalty in 2006 after confessing to the brutal killing of Patricia “Patsy” Miller, age 41.
Barnes acknowledged that he stole into Miller’s Melbourne apartment and sexually assaulted her twice before murdering her and putting her corpse on fire in a letter to an assistant state attorney in 2005. First-degree murder, burglary, two counts of sexual battery with a weapon, arson, and other charges were found to be true of the defendant.
Before 1998, when DNA evidence linked Barnes—who was already serving a life sentence for the 1997 murder of his wife—to Miller’s killing, the case remained unresolved for a decade. His refusal to cooperate with law enforcement when questioned previously in the Miller case was documented in court documents.
Related Posts
Barnes’ letter of confession to the lawyer came after he became a Muslim. He told investigators that he was fasting during Ramadan to clear his mind.
Barnes, who didn’t know Miller, told the court that on April 20, 1988, he broke into her house through a bedroom window and attacked her with a knife. He raped Miller twice, tried to choke her with the belt from her robes, and hit her head with a hammer.
Barnes said that he had used shoelaces to tie Miller to the bed and then set it on fire to hide the crime. FOX 13 reported that a medical officer found that she died from a blow to the head.
He was said to have been in her house for 45 to 60 minutes.
“She knew he was going to kill her as long as she was conscious, and she couldn’t fight back because he had her bound and was stronger than her,” the judge who sentenced Barnes to death wrote in her 37-page decision. “Patricia Miller went through a scary ordeal over time that ended in a horrible death at the hands of the defendant.”
Barnes “clearly stated that he went there to kill Ms. Miller and that it was not an afterthought,” the judge wrote. He also said that Barnes “worked calmly and coolly” to kill her in a “brutal and ruthless” way.
Barnes will be the fifth person to die by lethal injection in Florida this year. He will be put to death in August.
