Condemned man's death is sixth this year not in the chair

Walter Steinhorst, claimed by infirmities, was on death row for the infamous 1977 Sandy Creek murders.

By LUCY MORGAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 25, 1999

TALLAHASSEE -- Another death row inmate died this week, not in the state's electric chair but in a prison hospital where he was being treated for multiple medical problems.

Walter Gale Steinhorst, 68, on Florida's death row since 1978, is the seventh death row inmate to die this year. Only one of them, Allen Lee Davis, died in the electric chair.

Horace Melvin Pope, 52, and Dan Edward Routly, 44, also died in prison hospital facilities, both of cancer, according to prison officials. A fifth death row inmate, Frank Valdes, died after a violent encounter with prison guards. Nine guards have been suspended while state and federal investigators review Valdes' death on July 17.

Two other inmates died earlier this year: Manuel Colina, 47, used his bedsheet to make a noose and hanged himself on April 19, and Dwight Harrison, 47, died from unspecified medical causes on April 21.

Steinhorst of Live Oak was awaiting death in the electric chair for one of the state's most notorious murders. He died in a prison hospital after suffering from numerous medical problems. He was nearly blind and confined to a wheelchair, according to prison officials.

Steinhorst and several associates went to prison for the 1977 murders of four people who stumbled onto a drug-smuggling operation in the Florida Panhandle. A number of other men, including David Capo, a former Cortez resident, went to prison on drug smuggling charges stemming from the Sandy Creek encounter. The Gunsmoke, a shrimp trawler loaded with marijuana, was scuttled off Egmont Key a few days after the murders.

Authorities said the boat was scuttled in an attempt to hide evidence of the murders, which occurred after the unloading operation was interrupted on the secluded Sandy Creek beach on the night of Jan. 23, 1977.

The bodies of George Sims, 39, Gene Hood, 21, Sheila McAdams, 15, and Sandy McAdams, 14, were found tied and gagged and weighted down with concrete blocks in a Taylor County sinkhole eight months later.

After the boat sank, the U.S. Coast Guard found 11 bales of marijuana floating in Tampa Bay, but the boat wasn't raised until investigators linked it to the four murders months later.

Initially 17 men, including several from the Tampa Bay area, were charged with the murders, but 14 of them were later given immunity in return for their testimony against Steinhorst, David Goodwin and Charles Everett Hughes.

Steinhorst was sentenced to die in the electric chair, and Goodwin was sentenced to life in prison. Hughes drew a 15-year sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.

Earlier this year, Gov. Jeb Bush and members of the Cabinet denied Goodwin's request for clemency.

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