WATERHOUSE, ROBERT B

DC Number:	075376
Name:	WATERHOUSE, ROBERT B
Race:	WHITE
Sex:	MALE
Hair Color:	BROWN
Eye Color:	HAZEL
Height:	6’00”
Weight:	190 lbs.
Birth Date:	12/16/1946
Initial Receipt Date:	09/05/1980
Current Facility:	UNION C.I.
Current Custody:	MAXIMUM
Current Release Date:	DEATH SENTENCE

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Sixth Judicial Circuit, Pinellas County, Case #80-192

• Sentencing Judge: The Honorable Robert Beach
• Resentencing Judge: The Honorable Robert Beach
• Attorneys, Trial: Paul Scherer & John Thor White – Assistant Public Defenders
• Attorney, Resentencing: Larry Hoffman, Esq.
• Attorney, Direct Appeal: Philip J. Padovano, Esq.
• Attorney, Direct Appeal, Resentencing: Steven Bright, Esq. & Clive Stafford Smith, Esq.
• Attorney, Collateral Appeals: Robert Norgard – Private

Date of Offense: 01/02/80
Date of Sentence: 09/03/80
Date of Resentence: 04/11/90

Circumstances of Offense:

• On the morning of 01/03/80, St. Petersburg police responded to a call that the nude body of an unidentified woman had been found in the mud flats of Tampa Bay. There was evidence that the woman had been dragged from a grassy area on shore into the water at high tide. An examination of the body revealed severe lacerations on the head and rectum, and bruising on the throat. Medical examiners determined that drowning was ultimately the cause of death. Additionally, there was an adequate amount of acid phosphotase found in the woman’s rectum to suggest the presence of semen. The lacerations in her rectum were determined to be cause by the insertion of a large object.

• Unable to identify the body of the woman, St. Petersburg police turned to the public for help. An anonymous caller gave police of the license plate number of Robert Waterhouse and suggested that they should investigate him. The body of the woman was identified as Deborah Kammerer by her neighbors, Yohan Wenz and Carol Byers. Wenz and Byers reported that on the evening of 01/02/80 they accompanied Kammerer to the ABC Lounge. They later left the lounge, while Kammerer stayed behind. Kyoe Ginn, a bartender at the ABC Lounge, testified that he saw Kammerer talking to Robert Waterhouse and that the two left the lounge together around 1:00 a.m.

• On the evening of 01/07/80, Robert Waterhouse was asked to go to the police station voluntarily for questioning. Waterhouse told the investigators that he did not know the victim and did not leave the bar with a woman. Waterhouse was permitted to leave the police station, but his car was impounded with a search warrant. A search of his car revealed bloodstains and a luminol test showed that more blood had been wiped up. The blood found in the car was consistent with the blood type of Kammerer and inconsistent with the blood type of Waterhouse. Additionally, investigators found strands of hair that were similar in characteristic to the samples taken from Kammerer. There were also fibers in the car that matched fibers from the Kammerer’s coat and pants.

• Waterhouse was arrested on 01/09/80 for the murder of Deborah Kammerer. During a subsequent interrogation, Waterhouse was shown a picture of Kammerer and admitted that he did, in fact, know her.

Additional Information:

• In 1966, Robert Waterhouse was indicted on charges of First-Degree Murder and Burglary in New York. He was charged with breaking into a home and killing 77-year-old Ella Carter. Waterhouse pled guilty to Second-Degree Murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was on lifetime parole at the time of the Kammerer murder.