Dwight Thomas Eaglin was a former professional boxer from the Clearwater area of Florida who stands convicted of three murders committed five years apart. The first, of John Frederick Nichols, took place in St. Petersburg on February 27, 1998, when Eaglin was 22; it brought a conviction for first-degree murder and, in January 2001, a sentence of life. The second and third came on June 11, 2003, inside a state prison in Punta Gorda where he was serving that life term. Darla Lathrem, a correctional officer with the Florida Department of Corrections, and Charles Fuston, an inmate, died during an attempted escape by Eaglin and two other prisoners. A Charlotte County jury found him guilty of both murders in February 2006, and he was sentenced to death on each count.
The Florida Supreme Court upheld those sentences in 2009 and turned away his postconviction challenge in 2015. The case was reopened for one reason: the 2006 jury had recommended death by a vote of eight to four, and the law on jury votes in capital cases had since changed. The guilty verdicts were left untouched, but the sentencing had to be done again. In January 2026 a new jury in Punta Gorda recommended death by eleven votes to one for the murder of the officer and unanimously for the murder of the inmate. On June 19, 2026, a circuit judge sentenced Eaglin to death a second time. Florida law sends every death sentence to its Supreme Court for review, and that review was the next step as of late June 2026.
Eaglin was born on December 23, 1975. His early years were set out in the mitigation evidence his lawyers later assembled. The postconviction court found that his mother left the family when he was three. One of his brothers testified, years after the trial, to abuse the two of them had shared as children, though the same brother also said that the abuse "did not result in [Eaglin] behaving erratically or unpredictably." The sentencing judge in 2006 accepted one point in his favor, that he "suffered from a severely abusive childhood with a severely dysfunctional family," and gave it some weight.
He had boxed professionally. In his postconviction case he alleged that he had suffered head trauma from boxing and from football, and lay witnesses gave evidence in support. The defense psychologist who examined him before trial, Dr. Harry Krop, found no neuropsychological impairment and measured his full-scale IQ at 117. The Florida Supreme Court, reviewing that record in 2015, called him "a very intelligent individual."
When he appeared for sentencing in June 2026, at the age of 50, he was still identified as a man of Clearwater.
The first case belongs to Pinellas County, on Florida's Gulf Coast. The charge was first-degree murder, for an offense committed on February 27, 1998. The victim was John Frederick Nichols.
On January 10, 2001, Eaglin, then 25, was sentenced to life for the murder of Nichols. That life sentence would shape every later stage of his case. When he was tried for the 2003 murders, the conviction for Nichols's death supported two of the aggravating circumstances on which the state relied: that the new offenses were committed by a person under sentence of imprisonment, and that he had a prior conviction for a violent felony.
By the summer of 2003 Eaglin was 27 and had spent more than two years serving the life sentence. He was held at a state prison in Punta Gorda, in Charlotte County. On June 11, 2003, he and two other inmates, Stephen Smith, then 42, and Michael Jones, then 46, made an attempt to escape. It failed. In its course Officer Darla Lathrem and inmate Charles Fuston were killed.
The trial judge found that the murder of the officer was committed "for the purpose of effecting an escape from custody," and that it was cold, calculated and premeditated. The judge found the same premeditation in the murder of Fuston. Those findings, upheld on appeal, are the core of the case as the law sees it.
Darla K. Lathrem was 38 and worked as a correctional officer for the Florida Department of Corrections. She was on duty at the prison in Punta Gorda on June 11, 2003.
Her relatives spoke after both of the 2026 rulings. When the second jury returned its recommendation in January 2026, her sister said: "Our family is grateful that jurors made the appropriate recommendation." She added: "We miss Darla very much." A niece, speaking after the same verdict, said: "The defendant's actions do have a long-term effect on the families of the victims." When the death sentence was imposed again in June 2026, the family said they were glad the court had upheld it.
Charles Fuston, sometimes called Charlie, was 36 and was himself an inmate at the prison. In law his death stands on equal footing with the officer's. It formed Count II of the Charlotte County indictment, and when the second penalty jury voted in 2026, its recommendation of death on his count was unanimous, the stronger of the two votes.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement took charge of the investigation. On December 3, 2003, Eaglin was indicted in the Circuit Court of the Twentieth Judicial Circuit, in and for Charlotte County. Count I charged the first-degree murder of Darla Lathrem; Count II charged the first-degree murder of Charles Fuston. Smith and Jones were charged with him, and the three cases went forward separately.
Eaglin was represented at trial by Douglas R. Withee, an assistant public defender. Statements Eaglin gave to investigators later became the subject of a postconviction claim that his lawyer should have tried to suppress them.
The guilt phase was brief on the defense side. Withee presented no witnesses. On February 24, 2006, the jury found Eaglin guilty on all counts.
The penalty phase followed. The jury did not hear evidence about his childhood; the trial judge instead considered that history from the presentence report. On February 27, 2006, the jurors recommended death by eight votes to four for each murder.
Sentence was imposed on March 31, 2006. For the murder of Lathrem the court found five aggravating circumstances: that the murder was committed by a person under sentence of imprisonment; that Eaglin had a prior violent felony conviction; that the murder was committed to effect an escape from custody; that it was cold, calculated and premeditated; and that the victim was a law enforcement officer engaged in her legal duties, a factor the court merged with the escape aggravator. For the murder of Fuston it found three: under sentence of imprisonment, prior violent felony and cold, calculated premeditation. Against them the court set the single mitigating circumstance of his abusive childhood. It rejected the defense's proposed mitigation based on alleged negligence by the prison. It concluded that the aggravating circumstances outweighed the mitigation, followed the jury's recommendations and sentenced Eaglin to death on both counts.
Stephen Smith was tried separately in the same circuit. Two days before his verdict, on June 21, 2006, the count charging him with Fuston's murder was dropped. On June 23, 2006, he was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Darla Lathrem. His jury recommended death by nine votes to three, and he was sentenced to death on August 18, 2006. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed in 2008, and the United States Supreme Court declined to hear his case on April 20, 2009.
Michael Jones pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and received a life sentence. By March 2024 both Smith and Jones had died in prison.
Eaglin's notice of appeal was filed on April 21, 2006. His appellate lawyers, James Marion Moorman and Robert F. Moeller of the Public Defender's Office for the Tenth Judicial Circuit, raised six issues before the Florida Supreme Court. They argued that the trial judge wrongly prevented the defense from impeaching a state witness; that the court wrongly excluded from the penalty phase a videotaped interview with a former guard trainee; that available mitigation had not been presented and the court had failed to consider all the mitigation in the record; that the court had used Eaglin's supposed lack of remorse against him; that the jury should not have been instructed on, and the court should not have found, the cold, calculated and premeditated aggravator; and that Florida's death-penalty statute was unconstitutional. The state was represented by the office of Attorney General Bill McCollum, through Stephen D. Ake.
The case was argued on February 5, 2009. On June 4, 2009, the court rejected all six claims. "We affirm Eaglin's convictions and sentences," it wrote. The opinion was revised when rehearing was denied on October 8, 2009, and the mandate issued on October 27, 2009.
On January 5, 2011, Eaglin filed a motion for postconviction relief under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851, later amended to raise eleven claims. After a preliminary hearing the circuit court held an evidentiary hearing on three of them and then denied the motion. Eaglin appealed, and at the same time petitioned the Florida Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus.
The central claim was that his trial lawyer had failed him at the penalty phase, chiefly in the handling of mitigation. That claim brought the brother's testimony about their childhood, the allegations of head injuries and the expert evidence into the case. The court did not decide whether counsel had performed deficiently. It held that Eaglin had not shown prejudice: "any alleged failures of counsel during the penalty phase do not undermine confidence in the outcome of the penalty phase." An argument resting on a later psychiatric diagnosis failed because counsel had not been shown to be deficient.
A second claim concerned the guilt phase: that counsel should have moved to suppress Eaglin's statements because he had lacked the capacity to understand his rights. The court found neither deficiency nor prejudice, noting that the evidence "fails to establish that he was incapable of understanding his Miranda rights." Two claims the lower court had denied without a hearing, one alleging that the state had advanced inconsistent theories against the co-defendants and one alleging that it had withheld evidence favorable to the defense, were held to be "refuted by the record."
The habeas petition argued that his appellate lawyers should have raised a conflict of interest, because Dr. Krop had also been appointed as a competency expert for Michael Jones. The court found that Krop had completed his work for Eaglin before that appointment and that "Dr. Krop did not offer any testimony at Eaglin's trial." The precedent Eaglin relied on, it said, was "completely inapposite."
The decision, issued per curiam on June 25, 2015, was joined by Chief Justice Jorge Labarga and Justices Barbara Pariente, R. Fred Lewis, Peggy Quince, Charles Canady, Ricky Polston and James E. C. Perry. "We affirm the postconviction court's denial of relief," the court concluded, "and we also deny Eaglin's petition for a writ of habeas corpus."
The convictions and the death sentences had now survived every stage of state review. What reopened the case was a change in the law, not anything in the evidence. Florida for a period required a unanimous jury before a death sentence could be imposed, and in 2023 the legislature set the minimum at eight of twelve jurors. Because Eaglin's 2006 jury had not been unanimous, he was entitled to a new penalty phase. The guilty verdicts were not affected.
In March 2024 the Charlotte County court heard twelve defense motions in preparation for the new hearing. Among them were requests to remove the death penalty from consideration altogether, to allow people with felony convictions to sit on the jury and to screen prospective jurors extensively for bias.
Jury selection began in Punta Gorda on January 5, 2026, more than twenty-two years after the deaths. Eaglin, now 50, argued that the 2023 law was unconstitutional. The state was represented by Dan Feinberg of the State Attorney's Cold Case Homicide Unit, with Shannon Doolity and Kristan Burns. The defense, led by Bryant Camareno, built its case on Eaglin's abusive childhood and his mental illness, including the head injuries he had alleged in earlier proceedings, and argued that the man before the jury was a changed one. By January 15 the defense was in its third day of testimony.
On Wednesday, January 21, 2026, after a penalty phase of more than two weeks, the jurors recommended death on both counts: eleven to one for the murder of Darla Lathrem, twelve to none for the murder of Charles Fuston. Camareno said the judge "has to respect that verdict." State Attorney Amira Fox, whose office covers Charlotte, Lee, Collier, Glades and Hendry counties, said her office would never let up in seeking justice, "not after a day, a year, or decades." A Spencer hearing was set for March 20 and sentencing for March 27.
Sentencing took place later than scheduled. On June 19, 2026, in Punta Gorda, Circuit Judge Shannon H. McFee sentenced Eaglin to death on both counts, nearly twenty years after the first death sentences in the same case. "The death penalty is the right sentence," Fox said.
His lawyers said they would file the papers for the mandatory review of the sentences by the Florida Supreme Court, and no date had been set for his return to death row. As of June 22, 2026, Eaglin was held in Florida under sentence of death, with that review pending.
Florida's death-penalty procedure is set out in section 921.141 of the Florida Statutes. Under the 2024 text that governed Eaglin's second sentencing, the jury must first find at least one aggravating factor unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt. It may then recommend death if "at least eight jurors determine that the defendant should be sentenced to death." The judge must enter a written order explaining the sentence. A death sentence is "subject to automatic review by the Supreme Court of Florida," which is to dispose of the case within two years of the notice of appeal.
The eight-juror threshold dates from 2023 and is the lowest in the nation. Alabama, the only other state that permits death sentences on a non-unanimous jury, requires ten votes of twelve. On December 18, 2025, less than three weeks before jury selection began in Eaglin's case, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the 2023 law in two cases, Hunt and Jackson, rejecting the argument that a death sentence requires a unanimous recommendation.
The Twentieth Judicial Circuit, where both of Eaglin's Charlotte County sentencings took place, covers five counties of southwest Florida, and its State Attorney's Office prosecuted the case from the 2003 indictment to the 2026 sentence.
It is not known whether the Nichols case ended in a plea or a verdict. The offense was committed in 1998 and the sentence imposed in 2001.
The 2006 jury recommended death by eight votes to four, short of unanimity, and that is what led to the new penalty phase.
The part each of the three inmates played in the escape attempt was argued differently in the separate proceedings, and Eaglin himself raised a claim that the state had advanced inconsistent theories, which the courts rejected. What is settled is the outcome of each case: Eaglin convicted of both murders, Smith convicted of the murder of the officer, Jones convicted on his plea.
The mitigation offered on Eaglin's behalf remains his own case and not a judicial finding, apart from the abusive childhood the 2006 court accepted. The allegations of head injuries, the claimed mental illness and the defense description of him as a changed man were placed before the courts and the 2026 jury, which recommended death on both counts.
December 23, 1975: Dwight Thomas Eaglin is born.
February 27, 1998: John Frederick Nichols is murdered in St. Petersburg, Pinellas County.
January 10, 2001: Eaglin is sentenced to life for the first-degree murder of Nichols.
June 11, 2003: Officer Darla Lathrem and inmate Charles Fuston are killed during an attempted escape from a state prison in Punta Gorda.
December 3, 2003: Eaglin is indicted in Charlotte County on two counts of first-degree murder.
February 24, 2006: The jury finds him guilty on all counts.
February 27, 2006: The jury recommends death by eight votes to four.
March 31, 2006: He is sentenced to death on both counts.
June 23, 2006: Co-defendant Stephen Smith is found guilty of the first-degree murder of Lathrem; he is sentenced to death on August 18, 2006.
February 5, 2009: The Florida Supreme Court hears argument on Eaglin's direct appeal.
June 4, 2009: The court affirms his convictions and sentences; rehearing is denied on October 8, 2009.
January 5, 2011: Eaglin files his motion for postconviction relief.
June 25, 2015: The Florida Supreme Court affirms the denial of relief and denies his habeas petition.
2023: Florida sets a minimum jury vote of eight to twelve for a death recommendation.
March 2024: The Charlotte County court hears twelve defense motions before a new penalty phase.
December 18, 2025: The Florida Supreme Court upholds the 2023 jury law.
January 5, 2026: Jury selection for the new penalty phase begins in Punta Gorda.
January 21, 2026: The jury recommends death, eleven to one on Count I and twelve to none on Count II.
June 19, 2026: Judge Shannon H. McFee sentences Eaglin to death on both counts.
June 2026: The defense moves to begin the mandatory review by the Florida Supreme Court.