Florida man who dropped appeals is executed for 1988 rape, hammer killing of nurse

By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press

A Florida man who dropped all appeals has been executed for the 1988 rape and hammer killing of a nurse. Sixty-one-year-old James Phillip Barnes received a lethal injection Thursday evening at Florida State Prison in Starke. Barnes had been serving a life sentence for the 1997 strangulation of his wife when he wrote to a prosecutor in 2005 and claimed responsibility for killing nurse Patricia “Patsy” Miller years earlier at her Melbourne condominium.  Miller was killed and then set on fire in her own bed on April 20, 1988. Barnes represented himsef in court, pleaded guilty and accepted the death sentence. He dropped all appeals after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the inmate’s death warrant in June.