Prosecutors, Defense Lawyer in Oba Chandler 'Angels & Demons' Murder Case Plan to Witness Execution
If the execution of Oba Chandler takes place tomorrow at Florida State Prison in Raiford as scheduled, three top prosecutors and a defense lawyer in the notorious triple murder case intend to be there to witness it.
“I was kind of ambivalent about it,” said Bruce Bartlett, a 33-year veteran prosecutor who is chief assistant at the Pinellas-Pasco State’s Attorney’s Office.
“But the circumstances were particularly egregious. This guy wiped out a whole family and left a grieving father to live with this for the rest of his life,” he told the St. Petersburg Times. “This guy is the poster child for the death penalty.”
Along with two other veteran prosecutors from his office, Bartlett, 57, plans to witness the execution. Defense lawyer Baya Harrison III also plans to be there, the newspaper says.
Chandler, now 65, was the subject of Angels & Demons, a chilling, Pultizer Prize-winning series published in the St. Petersburg Times in 1999 about how the crime was solved by investigators and his trial and conviction.
Lengthy articles in Gainesville Sun and posted on journalist Bob Andelman’s blog page Mr. Media Radio Interviews provide further details.
