CHANDLER, OBA

DC Number: 056979 Name: CHANDLER, OBA Race: WHITE Sex: MALE Hair Color: GRAY OR PARTIALLY GRAY Eye Color: BLUE Height: 6’00” Weight: 211 lbs. Birth Date: 10/11/1946 Initial Receipt Date: 11/04/1994 Current Facility: UNION C.I. Current Custody: MAXIMUM Executed 11-15-2011 4:26 PM

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Sixth Judicial Circuit, Pinellas County, Case #92-17438

• Sentencing Judge: The Honorable Susan F. Schaeffer
• Trial Attorney: Frederic S. Zinober, Esq. & Robert A. Santa Lucia, Esq.
• Attorney, Direct Appeal: Paul Helm – Assistant Public Defender
• Attorney, Collateral Appeals: Gary Printy – Registry
• Date of Offense: 06/01/89
• Date of Sentence: 11/04/94

Circumstances of Offense:

• Oba Chandler was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of Joan Rogers and her two daughters, Michelle and Christe, on 06/01/89.

• Joan Rogers and her daughters were vacationing in Tampa from Ohio and checked into their hotel on 06/01/89. Housekeeping staff noticed that their room remained uninhabited for over week, at which point, they contacted the manager, who then contacted police. Upon investigation, the Rogers’ car was found abandoned beside a boat ramp off the Courtney Campbell Causeway. Inside the car they found a brochure with directions on it, parts of which were written in Oba Chandler’s handwriting. Chandler’s fingerprints were also lifted from the brochure.

• The bodies of all three women were found tied and weighted in Tampa Bay on 06/04/89. Each woman was naked from the waist down, arms and legs bound, and a cinder block was tied by a rope around their necks. Medical examiners determined the cause of death of all three women to be asphyxiation from the ropes around their necks, or from drowning.

• Investigation revealed similarities between the Rogers’ murders and the rape of a woman in a nearby area. From information given by Judy Blair, the victim of the rape, a composite drawing was made of the suspect and printed in the local paper, along with the stories of the two crimes. After seeing the article, Chandler fled the area and stayed with relatives. He admitted to them that the police were searching for him in connection with the rape/murder investigation.

• At trial, Judy Blair testified that when she first met Chandler he offered to take her on a sunset cruise on his boat. Not fearing for her safety in the least, Blair accompanied Chandler on a ride through Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. While at sea, Chandler raped Blair. Blair testified that she believed he would have killed her had it not been for the fact that a friend was waiting for her back at the dock. The State used this incident to hypothesize how Chandler lured the Rogers family with the offer of a cruise on his boat before he killed them. Chandler was not arrested or charged with the murders until September 1992.

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