Florida set to execute inmate James Phillip Barnes in nurse’s 1988 hammer killing

By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Florida is preparing to execute a man convicted of strangling his wife and brutally murdering another woman years earlier. The execution of 61-year-old James Phillip Barnes is expected to proceed on schedule Thursday evening at Florida State Prison in Starke after he dropped all legal appeals and said he wants to accept his punishment. Barnes was serving a life sentence for the 1997 strangulation of his wife, Linda Barnes, when he wrote letters in 2005 to a state prosecutor claiming responsibility for the 1988 killing of nurse Patricia “Patsy” Miller, who lived in in Melbourne, along Florida’s east coast. Barnes later pleaded guilty to killing Miller and didn’t attempt to seek a life sentence rather than the death penalty.