Amos Earl Robinson has spent more than four decades in Florida state custody. For a death in the autumn of 1983, when he was about 20, he and Abron Scott were convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery in the death of Carlos Orellana, a 33-year-old man, in Oldsmar, Florida. Both were sentenced to death. Those sentences were later reduced to life, and Robinson went on to be convicted of two further murders committed while in custody, in 1998 and 2004. He is serving three life sentences.
In August 2022 a Hillsborough County grand jury indicted Robinson and Scott for the 1983 deaths of two women in Tampa, Linda Lansen, 41, and Barbara Grams, 19. For 37 of the intervening years another man, Robert DuBoise, had been imprisoned for the death of Barbara Grams. A review of his conviction cleared him in 2020 and led the State Attorney's Office to Robinson and Scott. Scott pleaded guilty to both murders in March 2024. Robinson pleaded not guilty. In January 2026 he was still awaiting trial in Tampa, where the state is seeking the death penalty. He has not been convicted in either death, and an earlier charge against him in the death of a fourth person in 1983, Hermenia Castro, never went to trial.
When the 2022 indictment was announced he was 58 or 59, which places his birth around 1963 and his age in the summer of 1983 at about 19 or 20. Abron Scott was a year or so younger; he was 57 in August 2022.
The two men were named together in the Florida courts from 1983 onward. They were convicted together in the Orellana case, and by the time the cold cases reopened, prosecutors described them as having acted together throughout that year. In August 2022 Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren said the evidence connected Robinson to "four murders in a span of 103 days in Tampa in 1983," and Scott to three of them. That count, as Warren set it out, spanned the summer and autumn of 1983, from Linda Lansen's death in July to Carlos Orellana's in late October.
Only one of those four deaths has led to a conviction for Robinson. The others have been charged and, in two cases, are awaiting trial. In the order in which they happened, they began in July.
Linda Lansen was 41. She grew up in New York and moved to Tampa as an adult, and by the summer of 1983 she was raising a seven-year-old daughter there. She shared her life in Tampa with a niece who was also her roommate and one of her closest friends, and who would speak for her when the case returned to court nearly four decades later.
She died in Tampa in July 1983. The case was investigated by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, and it went cold. Detectives reopened it twice in the years that followed, and each time they were unable to identify a viable suspect. Her daughter grew up without knowing who had taken her mother. Her niece, when the indictment was announced in 2022, said, "I miss her very much every day," and spoke of "39 years of grief."
Barbara Grams was 19, a Tampa teenager remembered as friendly and outgoing. She died in Tampa in August 1983, a few weeks after Linda Lansen.
Her case did not go cold. Tampa police charged a young man named Robert DuBoise, and in March 1985 a jury convicted him. The two cases were not connected at the time, and nothing linked Barbara Grams's death to Linda Lansen's, or to Robinson and Scott, until 2020.
Hermenia Castro was 55. She died in Tampa on September 5, 1983. In the early 1990s, Robinson and a second man were charged in her death. The case never went to trial; prosecutors could not proceed for lack of evidence. Robinson has not been convicted in her death, and no court has made any finding about it. She is the fourth of the four deaths Warren listed in 2022.
Carlos Orellana was 33. He died in Oldsmar on October 22, 1983. Robinson and Scott were arrested and charged in his death, and both were convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery. Both men were sentenced to death.
In Florida, every death sentence goes on direct appeal to the state's Supreme Court. Robinson's came before it as Robinson v. State, and on April 10, 1986, the court issued its decision. It affirmed his conviction. It vacated his death sentence and sent the case back to the trial court for a new sentencing proceeding before a jury. Rehearing was denied on May 29, 1986.
Scott's case took a longer route. His death sentence for first-degree murder, robbery and kidnapping in the Orellana case remained in place into the 1990s, and on July 23, 1992, the Florida Supreme Court decided Scott v. Dugger, his appeal from the denial of a post-conviction motion under Florida's Rule 3.850 together with a petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
In the end neither man was put to death for Carlos Orellana's murder. Both death sentences were later reduced to life imprisonment. By 2022 Scott was serving a single life sentence in the case.
Robinson's record did not end with the Orellana case. While in custody he was twice convicted of murder for the deaths of fellow inmates: once in Washington County in 1998, and again in Escambia County in 2004. By 2022 he was serving three life sentences for first- and second-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery.
Those two cases stand apart from the 1983 charges. Each was a separate death, six years apart, in a different county, and each ended in a conviction.
The case that brought Robinson back into a Tampa courtroom began with someone else's conviction. Robert DuBoise was convicted on March 7, 1985, of capital murder and attempted sexual battery in the death of Barbara Grams. The jury recommended a sentence of life. The trial judge overrode the recommendation and sentenced him to death. The Florida Supreme Court rejected most of his claims on appeal around 1988, and his death sentence was later reduced to life.
In 2018 Warren created a Conviction Review Unit in the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office. On September 26, 2019, it agreed to reinvestigate the DuBoise case. In 2020 a review of the evidence from the Grams case excluded DuBoise and linked the case instead to two men who were already serving life sentences for murder: Amos Robinson and Abron Scott.
DuBoise walked free in late August 2020, after 37 years. On September 14, 2020, Circuit Judge Christopher Nash vacated his conviction. In October 2021 he filed a federal civil rights suit. In 2023 the Florida legislature passed a bill granting him $1.25 million in compensation, and in February 2024 the Tampa City Council approved a $14 million settlement.
The Grams result prompted a second look at the Lansen case. In 2021 Assistant State Attorney Teresa Hall approached the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office about the July 1983 death, which detectives had twice reopened without result. Evidence from that case was then linked to the same two men.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Tampa Police Department and the Sheriff's Office all worked on the reinvestigation. By the summer of 2022 prosecutors were ready to go to a grand jury in both cases.
On August 4, 2022, a Hillsborough County grand jury indicted Robinson and Scott for murder in the deaths of Barbara Grams and Linda Lansen, along with counts of sexual battery. The charges were brought as capital felony cases. Both men were then in their late fifties, and both were already in state custody.
Warren announced the indictments at a press conference that same day. He called the reinvestigation "a massive undertaking" and said, "We can now prosecute these men, and we will." Of the Lansen case he said, "Today, we can deliver answers for Linda's family and peace for her soul." He also read a statement from Linda Lansen's daughter, who had been seven when her mother died.
The announcement came on the day Governor Ron DeSantis suspended Warren from office, so that the two prosecutions passed almost at once to new leadership.
Lansen's niece spoke at the announcement. "This is a day that I never ever thought would come," she said.
Robinson and Scott were arraigned on August 15, 2022, and both pleaded not guilty. At the same hearing the public defender's office moved to withdraw from representing Scott because of a conflict of interest.
On September 27, 2022, the office, now led by State Attorney Susan Lopez, filed notices of intent to seek the death penalty against both men in both cases. Under Florida law that notice is the step that turns a first-degree murder prosecution into a capital one, and it set the terms of the trial that Robinson still faces.
On March 20, 2024, Abron Scott pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of sexual battery in the deaths of Barbara Grams and Linda Lansen. He received two additional life sentences, to run consecutively to the one he was already serving, for three consecutive life terms in all. As part of the case he was expected to testify against Robinson.
In court Scott addressed Linda Lansen's daughter, now an adult. "I want you to know sincerely, willingly and humbly I apologize for my participation," he said, and asked her, "please forgive me." She answered him directly. "You ruined my life," she said, and told the court, "I never thought the day would come when I would find out who killed my mother."
The State Attorney's Office noted after the plea that Robinson still faced a possible death sentence if convicted, and that his trial was then set for September 20, 2024.
Robinson's lawyers moved in a different direction. On April 1, 2024, less than two weeks after Scott's plea, they asked the court to close certain hearings to the public and to take steps against the contamination of a future jury, citing what they called "unprecedented and highly prejudicial publicity." No date was then set to hear the motions.
The September 2024 trial date passed without a trial.
In January 2026 the court held another pretrial hearing in Robinson's case. His defense was expected to point to Robert DuBoise, the man wrongly convicted of the Grams murder, as part of an effort to raise doubt about the state's case. By late January 2026 no trial date had been made public and no verdict had been returned. Robinson remained in Florida state custody, serving his three life sentences, with the Grams and Lansen charges unresolved.
If convicted of first-degree murder in either case, he faces a possible sentence of death.
Florida's capital process shaped every stage of this case. A first-degree murder charge begins with a grand jury indictment. The state then decides whether to file a notice of intent to seek the death penalty, as it did against Robinson and Scott in September 2022. If a defendant is convicted, a jury hears evidence on sentence and makes a recommendation. In 1985, when Robert DuBoise was sentenced, a Florida trial judge could override a jury's recommendation of life and impose death, which is what happened in his case.
Every death sentence in Florida goes directly to the Florida Supreme Court. That court heard Robinson's appeal in 1986 and Scott's post-conviction appeal in 1992. In Robinson's case it upheld the conviction but ordered a new jury sentencing, the first step on the path that ended in life sentences for both men in the Orellana case.
The Conviction Review Unit created in Hillsborough County in 2018 was the means by which both the DuBoise exoneration and the 2022 indictments came about. The same reinvestigation that cleared one man led directly to charges against two others, and the testimony of one of those two is expected to form part of the case against Robinson.
Robinson has not been convicted in the deaths of Barbara Grams or Linda Lansen. He was indicted for murder in both deaths and pleaded not guilty, and in January 2026 the charges were still awaiting trial. Abron Scott's guilty plea is a conviction of Scott alone. Robinson's defense has indicated that it will contest the state's case, in part by pointing to the earlier wrongful conviction of Robert DuBoise.
Robinson has never been tried in the death of Hermenia Castro. He and a second man were charged in the early 1990s, and the case was dropped for lack of evidence. Andrew Warren's 2022 statement that the evidence linked Robinson to four deaths in 103 days is the prosecutor's account and not a finding by any court.
July 1983: Linda Lansen, 41, dies in Tampa.
August 1983: Barbara Grams, 19, dies in Tampa.
September 5, 1983: Hermenia Castro, 55, dies in Tampa.
October 22, 1983: Carlos Orellana, 33, dies in Oldsmar. Robinson and Abron Scott are later convicted of his first-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery and sentenced to death.
March 7, 1985: Robert DuBoise is convicted of capital murder and attempted sexual battery in the Grams case; the judge overrides the jury's life recommendation and imposes death.
April 10, 1986: The Florida Supreme Court, in Robinson v. State, affirms Robinson's conviction, vacates his death sentence and orders a new jury sentencing. Rehearing is denied on May 29, 1986.
Early 1990s: Robinson and a second man are charged in the Castro case, which never goes to trial.
July 23, 1992: The Florida Supreme Court decides Scott v. Dugger in Scott's post-conviction appeal.
1998: Robinson is convicted of the murder of a fellow inmate in Washington County.
2004: Robinson is convicted of the murder of a fellow inmate in Escambia County.
2018: The Hillsborough State Attorney's Office creates a Conviction Review Unit.
September 26, 2019: The unit agrees to reinvestigate the DuBoise case.
August 2020: DuBoise is released after 37 years; on September 14, 2020, his conviction is vacated.
2021: Prosecutors and the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office reopen the Lansen case.
August 4, 2022: A grand jury indicts Robinson and Scott for murder in the Grams and Lansen deaths.
August 15, 2022: Both men plead not guilty.
September 27, 2022: The state files notices of intent to seek the death penalty against both.
March 20, 2024: Scott pleads guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of sexual battery and receives two further life sentences.
April 1, 2024: Robinson's lawyers ask for closed hearings and protections against jury contamination.
September 20, 2024: The scheduled trial date passes without a trial.
January 2026: A pretrial hearing is held; Robinson remains awaiting trial.