32 Facts About Oba Chandler

Oba Chandler was an American serial killer and mass murderer who was convicted and executed for the June 1989 murders of Joan Rogers and her two daughters, whose bodies were found floating in Tampa Bay, Florida, with their hands and feet bound.

Oba Chandler said he never saw them again, except in newspaper coverage and on the billboards set up by authorities.

At the funeral, Oba Chandler jumped into his father's open grave as the gravediggers were covering the coffin with dirt.

When Oba Chandler was fourteen, he began stealing cars and was arrested twenty times as a juvenile.

Oba Chandler was accused of masturbating while peeping through a woman's window.

Oba Chandler told his accomplice to tie up the man with speaker wire and took the woman into the bedroom, where he made her strip to her underwear, tied her up, and rubbed the barrel of his revolver across her stomach.

Oba Chandler knew Joan and her daughters were not from Florida because he saw the Ohio license plates on their car.

Oba Chandler was arrested for the murders on September 24,1992.

Oba Chandler had planned to use it to look for his wife and daughters before he was notified of their deaths.

At his trial in Clearwater, Florida, Oba Chandler said he met Joan, Michelle, and Christe Rogers and gave them directions but he never saw them again except in newspaper coverage and on billboards.

Oba Chandler said he had returned home late because his engine would not start, which he attributed to a gas line leak.

Oba Chandler said he had called the Coast Guard and the Florida Marine Patrol, and had flagged down a patrol boat, but both were too busy to help.

Oba Chandler said he subsequently fixed the line with duct tape and returned safely to shore.

Under questioning from Pinellas County prosecutor Douglas Crow, Oba Chandler then said he could not remember.

Blair had been with her friend Barbara Mottram, who refused Oba Chandler's offer to join them on the boat.

Oba Chandler was not charged with this crime, initially because his identity was not known, and, after the murder trial, to prevent Blair from having to recount the ordeal again.

Oba Chandler told Blair and Mottram he was in the aluminum-siding contracting business, which later helped lead investigators to him.

Oba Chandler said she did not realize the significance of this sighting until Chandler's arrest in 1992; this sighting has never been confirmed.

Oba Chandler was found guilty of the murders and was sentenced to death on November 4,1994.

Oba Chandler maintained his innocence and continued to pursue legal appeals while on Florida's death row.

Oba Chandler awaited execution of his sentence at the Union Correctional Institution.

Oba Chandler was no longer allowed to see his daughter Whitney and in accordance with his ex-wife's wishes, he was not allowed to see later photographs of her.

In July 2008, Oba Chandler was on Florida's short list of executions.

Oba Chandler remained a suspect in the 1982 murder of a woman whose body was found floating off Anna Maria Island until 2011, when the body was identified as 29-year-old Amy Hurst and her husband William was arrested and charged with her murder, and was sentenced to life in prison on April 4,2011.

Oba Chandler said his last words before his execution would be, "Kiss my rosy red ass".

Judge Susan F Schaeffer, who presided over the 1994 trial and ultimately sentenced Chandler described him in a 2011 interview as "a man with no soul".

Oba Chandler's execution was set for November 15,2011, at 4:00pm Oba Chandler's lawyer Baya Harrison said Chandler asked him not to file any frivolous appeals to keep him alive.

Oba Chandler is not putting a lot of pressure on me to go running around at the end to find some magic way out.

Harrison said Oba Chandler suffered from high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, problems with his kidneys, and arthritis.

On October 12,2011, Harrison said although he was preparing to file a motion regarding the violation of his client's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights in the case, he was unsure whether Oba Chandler was willing to travel to Clearwater for the court hearing or would agree to the filing of the motion.

Law enforcement agencies across Florida investigated other cold cases in areas Oba Chandler was known to have resided.

Oba Chandler's case was featured in a full-hour episode of Crime Stories.