Judge Denies Appeal of Condemned Inmate

Clearwater, FL -- January 20, 2012 --

A judge has denied a late appeal from a Florida inmate scheduled to be executed next month.

The ruling came Friday in the case of 65-year-old Robert Waterhouse. He was sent to death row for the rape and murder of a 29-year-old woman in St. Petersburg in January 1980.

At the center of his appeal was a new witness who said he saw Waterhouse leaving a bar with two men, not the victim, on the night she was killed. Senior Circuit Judge Robert Beach rejected it after hearing testimony last week.

Waterhouse is scheduled to be executed Feb. 15. Gov. Rick Scott signed the death warrant earlier this month.

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Florida Killer Scheduled to be Executed Feb. 15

David Royse, The News Service of Florida

Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday signed a death warrant for a man convicted of murdering a woman in St. Petersburg three decades ago.

Robert Brian Waterhouse is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m., Feb. 15 under the order issued by Scott, the third death warrant he has signed since becoming governor just under a year ago. Scott set the week for the execution, and Florida State Prison Warden Steven Singer set the exact day.

Waterhouse, 65, was convicted in the Jan. 2, 1980 murder of Deborah Kammerer. He had been set for execution under a death warrant signed by Gov. Bob Graham in 1985 but a stay was issued four days before he was to be executed.

The lengthy time between Kammerer's murder and a new warrant for Waterhouse's death was due in part to an order that he be re-sentenced in 1988 to take into account mitigating evidence ignored in the sentencing phase of his first trial. But Waterhouse was again sentenced to death in 1990, which started the mandatory appeal process over again.

Waterhouse at the time of the murder was on lifetime parole from an earlier life sentence for the killing of 77-year-old Ella Carter in New York.

Kammerer's body was found in the mud flats of Tampa Bay. She had drowned, but before that took 22 blows to the head, been choked and raped.

Waterhouse had denied he committed the murder.

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Tallahassee, FL (AP) - A Florida killer convicted of murdering a woman and throwing her body into Tampa Bay more than 30 years ago is scheduled to be executed on Feb. 15.

Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday signed a death warrant for Robert Waterhouse.

Waterhouse was found guilty of killing Deborah Kammerer whose nude body was found washed up on a beach. She had been raped and beaten and drowned in the morning tide. The pair had been seen leaving a St. Petersburg bar on the night of Jan. 2, 1980.

Waterhouse, who is now 65, was nearly executed back in 1985 but his execution was eventually held up by judges.

This is the third death warrant that Scott has signed since becoming governor in January 2011.