Oba Chandler

Chandler was the fourth of five children born to Oba Chandler Sr. and Margaret Johnson, and was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio.[1] When he was ten years old in June 1957, his father hanged himself in the basement of the family's apartment.[1] At the funeral, Chandler reportedly jumped into his father's open grave as the gravediggers were covering the coffin with dirt.[1][2] Chandler fathered thirteen children by twelve women, including two sons and two daughters who were placed for adoption. Chandler's youngest daughter was born in February 1989. Between May and September 1991,‍—‌concurrent with the police investigation of the Rogers family triple murder‍—‌ Chandler was an informant for the U.S. Customs Bureau's Tampa office.[2][3]

When Chandler was fourteen, he began stealing cars and was arrested twenty times as a juvenile.[1] As an adult, he was charged with a variety of crimes, including possession of counterfeit money, loitering, burglary, kidnapping, and armed robbery.[4] He was also accused of masturbating while peering through a woman's window. In one incident, Chandler and an accomplice broke into a Florida couple's home, held them at gunpoint, and robbed them. 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.[2]

Courtney Campbell Causeway from the Clearwater side of the bridge where the bodies were found

On May 26, 1989, Joan "Jo" Rogers, 36, and her daughters‍—‌Michelle, 17, and Christe, 14‍—‌left their family dairy farm in Willshire, Ohio, for a vacation in Florida.[5][6] It was the first time they had left their home state. Authorities believe Joan became lost on June 1 during the return drive from Orlando to Willshire, and had decided to take an extra vacation day in Tampa.[7] While looking for their hotel they encountered Chandler, who gave them directions and offered to meet them again later to take them on a sunset cruise of Tampa Bay.[1] Joan and her teenage daughters had left Orlando around 9:00 a.m.[8] and checked into the Days Inn on Route 60 at 12:30 p.m.[9]

Photographs retrieved from a roll of film found in a camera in the Rogers' hotel room showed Michelle sitting on the floor. The last photograph was taken from the hotel balcony and showed the sun beginning to set over Tampa Bay, confirming that all three family members were alive and had not left their hotel room as the sunset began.[10] They were last seen alive at the hotel's restaurant at around 7:30 p.m. It is believed they boarded Chandler's boat by the dock on the Courtney Campbell Causeway—part of Route 60—between 8:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., and that they were dead by 3 a.m. the next day.[11] Chandler may have used the fact that he was born in Ohio to lure them into feeling a connection to him.[12] Chandler knew Joan and her daughters were not from Florida because he saw the Ohio license plates on their car.[13][14]

Sunshine Skyway over Tampa Bay where the first body was found on June 4, 1989

The victims' bodies were found floating in Tampa Bay on June 4, 1989.[15] The first body was found when several people on board a sailboat crossing under the Sunshine Skyway saw an object in the water.[16] The second body was seen floating off the pier in St. Petersburg, two miles (3.2 km) north of the first. While the Coast Guard were recovering the second body, a call about a third, which was seen floating 200 yards (180 m) to the east, was received. All three female bodies were found floating face down, bound with a rope around the neck, and naked below the waist.[17]

Autopsies showed all three victims had water in their lungs, proving they had been thrown into the water while still alive.[18] Michelle, who was identified as the second body found, had freed one hand from her bonds before she drowned. The partially dressed state of the three bodies indicated the underlying crime was sexual assault.[5][18] Ropes with a concrete block at the other end had been tied around the victims' necks to ensure they died from either suffocation or drowning, and that their bodies would never be found.[19][20] The bodies, however, bloated as a result of decomposition, and floated to the surface.[18][21]

The writing on the note written on Joan Rogers's map, which was used to identify Chandler as the killer

The case remained unsolved for over three years, partly due to the volume of tips received by police investigators. The biggest tip came from a Madeira Beach police bulletin that described a similar rape of a 24-year-old Canadian tourist that occurred two weeks before the Rogers' murders.[25] Chandler was arrested for the murders on September 24, 1992.[16][25] His handwritten directions on a brochure found in the Rogers' vehicle and a description of his boat written by Jo Rogers on the brochure were the primary clues that led to him being named a suspect.[26][27] Local police posted images of Chandler's handwriting on the brochure on billboards in the Tampa Bay area, leading to a call from a former neighbor who provided a copy of a work order Chandler had written.[28][29] This was the first-such use of billboards by law enforcement in the US. Billboards became useful tools in later searches for missing people.[30]

Through handwriting analysis, the two samples were matched conclusively.[25] A palm print found on the brochure was also matched to Chandler, who had sold his boat and left town with his family soon after the billboards appeared.[31] Police reported that Chandler and his then-wife moved from their home on Dalton Avenue in Tampa to Port Orange near Daytona Beach.[25]

Investigators originally thought two men were involved in the murders of the Rogers family. This theory was used for an enaction shown in a 1991 episode of Unsolved Mysteries.[32] This theory was dismissed when Chandler was arrested. No evidence of a second man‍—‌other than a former prison cellmate's claim that Chandler said another man, whose identity the cellmate claimed to know but would not reveal‍—‌has ever surfaced.[33] The second-suspect theory was belied by Chandler's approach of two Canadian female tourists‍—‌that he was willing to approach multiple potential targets by himself.[34]

Hal Rogers's brother John was also considered a suspect, even though he was serving a prison sentence for the rape of a woman at the time of the murders.[34] Police investigating the woman's rape allegation found evidence indicating John had also sexually assaulted Hal's daughter Michelle, although charges involving this assault were later dropped because of her reluctance to testify.[35] The St. Petersburg Times said John may have planned the murder during a visit to his parents' property near Tampa a month before the murders. Once the police established John could not have hired a contract killer, did not have accomplices, and could not have known the timing of his sister-in-law's and nieces' trip, he was dismissed as a suspect.[5][34]

Hal was also considered a suspect because he had posted bail for his brother knowing he had abused Michelle.[35] Hal later said he had promised the family he would post bail and would not renege on his promise.[21] Investigators from Florida and Ohio also discovered Hal had withdrawn US$7,000 from his bank account at the time of the disappearance,[34] which he was able to account for. He had planned to use it to look for his wife and daughters before he was notified of their deaths. Investigations proved conclusively Hal had not left Ohio during that period.[32] The rape of Michelle Rogers and gossip by local people was one of the reasons for the Florida trip; Joan and her daughters wanted to distance themselves from the incident.[35]

At his trial in Clearwater, Florida, 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.[36][37] He acknowledged he was on Tampa Bay that night‍—‌the police had evidence of three ship-to-shore telephone calls made from his boat to his home during the time frame of the murders‍—‌but Chandler maintained he was fishing alone. He said he had returned home late because his engine would not start, which he attributed to a gas line leak.[36] He also 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.[37] He said he subsequently fixed the line with duct tape and returned safely to shore.[38]

There were, however, no records of distress calls from Chandler to either the Coast Guard or the Marine Patrol that night, nor were there any Coast Guard boats on the bay the following morning that could have helped him.[16] According to a boat mechanic who testified for the prosecution, Chandler's explanation of repairing the boat's alleged gas leak was not tenable because the fuel lines in his boat‍—‌a Bayliner‍—‌were directed upward.[36] A leak would have sprayed fuel into the air rather than into the boat and the gasoline would have dissolved the adhesive of the duct tape Chandler maintained he had used to repair the purported leak.[16] Under questioning from Pinellas County prosecutor Douglas Crow, Chandler then said he could not remember.[36][39]

A woman named Judy Blair testified that on May 15, 1989, two weeks before the Rogers murders, Chandler invited her onto his boat in nearby Madeira Beach for a boat trip on Tampa Bay, raped her and then returned her to shore. Blair had been with her friend Barbara Mottram, who refused Chandler's offer to join them on the boat. After Judy was raped, she told the court she returned to her hotel room where Barbara was waiting.[40] Chandler was not charged with this crime.[40] Blair testified during Chandler's murder trial to establish his pattern of attack and to show the similarities between the two crimes.

Blair stated that Chandler, on May 14, had given his name as Dave Posner or Dave Posno when the three first met at a convenience store in Tampa.[40] He told Blair and Mottram he was in the aluminum-siding contracting business, which later helped lead investigators to him.[41] It also inspired the name of the investigation; "Operation Tin Man".[42] The facial composite produced from Blair's description was posted on the billboards along with the handwriting samples.[43][44]

A former employee of Chandler's testified that he bragged about dating three women on the bay on the night of the murders, and that the next morning he arrived by boat and delivered materials for a job and immediately set out again.[45] In an attempt to establish Chandler's whereabouts on that night, investigators found records of several ship-to-shore telephone calls made from his boat to his home between 1:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., which may have been attempts to explain his absence to his wife[46] and to provide himself with an alibi for the time of the murders. Chandler's daughter Kristal May Sue testified that her father had talked about killing three women and that he was afraid of returning to Tampa.[47] A woman who worked as a maid at the Days Inn said she walked past Chandler on June 1 as she was going to the Rogers' room for room service. She said she did not realize the significance of this sighting until Chandler's arrest in 1992; this sighting has never been confirmed.[40] Michelle Rogers' boyfriend and Hal Rogers also gave evidence during trial.[47]

Joan, Michelle, and Christe Rogers were buried in their hometown on June 13, 1989, after a funeral service attended by about 300 family members and friends.[48][49] Numerous police officers were present to keep reporters and television crews out of the church during the service.[49]

Chandler was found guilty of the murders and was sentenced to death on November 4, 1994.[50][51][52] He maintained his innocence and continued to pursue legal appeals while on Florida's death row.[53] He admitted to the Madeira Beach incident but said the sex was consensual and that the victim had changed her mind during the act. Because Chandler had already been sentenced to death for the Rogers murders and because prosecutors did not want to subject Blair to the emotional trauma of a rape trial, he was never prosecuted for Blair's rape.[50]

Union Correctional Institution where Chandler served his prison sentence

Chandler awaited execution of his sentence at the Union Correctional Institution.[54] Shortly after the trial and conviction, his wife Debra filed for divorce and their marriage was formally dissolved a year later. 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.[55] In July 2008, Chandler was on Florida's short list of executions.[56]

Profiling experts speculated Chandler may have killed previously, based on the belief that a first-time killer would not be experienced or bold enough to abduct and kill three women at once. Chandler remained a suspect in the 1982 murder of a woman whose body was found floating off Anna Maria Island[57] until 2011, when the body was identified as 29-year-old Amy Hurst and her husband was arrested and charged with her murder.[58] Chandler was never charged with another murder.[59] All of his appeals of his 1994 conviction were denied; his last was in May 2007.[60]

After his conviction, Chandler was named by media as one of Florida's most notorious criminals.[61] He said his last words before his execution would be, "Kiss my rosy red ass".[62] In May 2011, comparisons were drawn between Chandler's case and trial in 1994, and the murder case of Caylee Anthony. In both cases, heightened media attention forced the selection of jurors who lived outside the county where the crime had been committed.[63] One of the jurors in Chandler's 1994 trial said, "He scared some of the jurors when he would sit there and stare at you and have that stupid grin on his face. He would make your skin crawl."[63]

Judge Susan F. Schaeffer, who presided over the 1994 trial and ultimately sentenced Chandler[64] described him in a 2011 interview as "a man with no soul". She said, "It's the worst case as far as factually, and as far as a defendant without saving grace, that I ever handled. And I represented plenty of people who were not necessarily good people."[65]