DeSantis Signs Death Warrant for Willie Crain Jr., 80, in 1998 Murder of 7-Year-Old Amanda Brown; Execution Set for Dec. 10

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday, Nov. 10, signed a death warrant for Willie Crain Jr., the 80-year-old former Tampa crab fisherman convicted in the 1998 kidnapping and murder of 7-year-old Amanda Brown, one of the most notorious crimes in Tampa Bay history and a case in which the child's body was never found. Crain is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Dec. 10 at Florida State Prison near Starke.

Crain has been on Florida's death row for nearly 27 years. If the execution goes forward, he will be among the last prisoners put to death under DeSantis, who leaves office in January after presiding over the most active period of executions in the state's modern history.

The warrant and the schedule

Florida executions are customarily set for 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison, where the state's death chamber is located. Crain's date falls after two other executions already on the calendar: Thomas Mitchell Overton, convicted of killing a couple and their unborn child in the Florida Keys in 1999, is scheduled for Nov. 18, and Ricardo Gonzalez, convicted of fatally shooting North Miami Beach police Officer Steven Bauer during a 1992 bank robbery, is scheduled for Dec. 1.

The state carried out its 19th execution of the year on Nov. 5, when Jesse Guardado was put to death for the 2004 killing of Jackie Malone in Walton County. That tied the record of 19 executions Florida set in 2025. If the three scheduled executions all proceed, Crain's would be the state's 22nd of 2026.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that DeSantis has overseen 38 executions over the past two years, making Florida the nation's leading state for capital punishment, and will leave office having put close to 50 men to death, far more than any predecessor. In October, DeSantis withdrew a death warrant for the first time since taking office, calling off the scheduled execution of William Lee Thompson.

The crime

According to trial testimony and court records summarized by the Times, Amanda's mother, Kathryn Harris, met Crain in September 1998 at a country bar, where he bought her drinks, danced with her and told her he needed a good woman. Crain had served prison time in the 1980s and early 1990s for child molestation.

On Sept. 10, 1998, Harris invited Crain to her mobile home in Seffner, where he met Amanda. Harris later testified that Crain seemed unusually interested in the girl: he offered her money for getting her homework right and brushed and blow-dried her hair after she showered. The three later went to Crain's mobile home and watched the movie "Titanic." That night, according to court records, Crain gave Harris a Valium after she complained of a headache, then drove mother and daughter home. Harris remembered Amanda lying beside her in a blue and white nightgown, and Crain getting into bed next to the girl, before she fell asleep.

When Harris woke early the next morning, Crain and Amanda were gone. Reached by phone, Crain told her he did not know where the girl was.

The evidence at trial

Witnesses at a loading dock testified that they saw Crain that morning carrying a large bundle onto a boat. One witness recalled Crain previously boasting that he knew how to dispose of a body where no one could find it, according to court records. People who saw Crain in the days after the disappearance noticed scratches on his skin; his defense later argued they could have come from handling crab traps.

Crain told detectives he left Harris' home around 1:30 a.m. and spent the early morning cleaning his trailer's bathroom after spilling bleach. Investigators who searched the trailer found bloodstains in the bathroom and on a pair of his boxer shorts, and DNA testing matched the blood to both Crain and Amanda. Crain claimed the girl had a loose tooth. Harris testified that one of Amanda's baby teeth was close to falling out, but that it had not bled.

Investigators searched upper Tampa Bay extensively. Amanda's body has never been found.

Conviction, sentence and appeals

A Hillsborough County jury found Crain guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping in September 1999. The Times reported that the same jury unanimously recommended a death sentence, and the trial judge imposed it on Nov. 19, 1999. The Florida Supreme Court upheld his convictions and sentence in 2004, and the Times reported that his remaining appeals were exhausted this year.

Crain has maintained his innocence throughout. On appeal, he argued the evidence was insufficient to prove his guilt. In a 2009 letter to the Tampa Tribune, he insisted he could prove he was not the person who took Amanda, claimed evidence had been withheld from his jury and wrote that he had lung cancer and had refused treatment.

A mother still waiting for answers

Harris, now 67 and living in Lakeland, learned of the warrant Tuesday in a phone call from a Times reporter. She told the newspaper she plans to attend the execution and does not believe in the idea of closure.

"When you lose a child like that, you always feel the pain," Harris told the Times. "It doesn't go away. It doesn't get better." Amanda would be 35 today. Harris said the loss is made worse by having no grave to visit. "I just wish he'd tell me what he did with her," she said.

Amanda's father, Roy Brown, told the Tribune in 2009 that he had tried to arrange a prison visit with Crain but was denied over security concerns. "He's the only one who knows what happened to her," Brown said then.

What's next

With a warrant signed, Crain's attorneys are expected to pursue last-round appeals in state and federal courts, the standard course in Florida death warrant cases, including review by the Florida Supreme Court and a possible petition to the U.S. Supreme Court. Unless a court or the governor intervenes, the execution is set for Dec. 10 at Florida State Prison, eight days after the scheduled Gonzalez execution and roughly a month before DeSantis leaves office.