Florida Executes Glen Edward Rogers for the 1995 Tampa Murder of Tina Marie Cribbs
Rogers, 62, also condemned in California for a 1995 killing there, died by lethal injection at Florida State Prison 30 years after Cribbs was stabbed in a Tampa motel.
Published
Tina Marie Cribbs, a 34-year-old mother of two from Gibsonton, Florida, met Glen Edward Rogers at a lounge there in November 1995. Two days later she was found stabbed to death at the Tampa 8 Inn, on 46th Street at East Columbus Drive in East Tampa. Thirty years later, on the night of Thursday, May 15, 2025, Florida executed him for her murder.
Rogers, 62, a former carnival worker, received a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke and was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m., authorities said. He was the fifth person put to death in Florida that year. Gov. Ron DeSantis had signed his death warrant on April 15, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeals without comment the day before the execution.
In a final statement, Rogers thanked his wife, who had visited him at the prison earlier in the day, according to visitor logs. He said, without explaining, that "in the near future, your questions will be answered." He also said, "President (Donald) Trump, keep making America great. I'm ready to go." The execution took 16 minutes, and he lay nearly still through it; at one point a staff member grasped him by the shoulders, shook him and called his name to see whether he was conscious. No members of Cribbs's family spoke to reporters afterward.
Rogers had been arrested in Kentucky a few days after the killing, following a police pursuit, while driving Cribbs's car. A jury in Tampa found him guilty in 1997. He had also drawn a separate death sentence in California for the 1995 strangulation of Sandra Gallagher, a mother of three he met at a bar in Van Nuys, a killing that came weeks before Cribbs's. His lawyers filed a series of unsuccessful appeals in state and federal courts. One argued that a newly enacted Florida law allowing the death penalty for trafficking young children showed that the abuse he suffered as a child was now taken seriously and should earn him life in prison instead. The courts rejected it.
He was also a suspect in slayings in Louisiana and Mississippi. After the execution, Randy and Amy Roberson, whose mother, Andy Jiles Sutton, was killed in Louisiana, said in a statement that Rogers "got what he deserves." "He certainly did not deserve to live the past 28 years," the statement said. UPI reported that Rogers once told police he had killed about 70 people and later took the claim back.
No statement from the Florida Department of Corrections or the governor's office could be opened. This account rests on the Associated Press report of the execution as published by WUSF, and on UPI's, which credits CBS News for the execution details.
Sources
- Florida executes Glen Edward Rogers for 1995 murder of woman at an East Tampa hotel, WUSF (Associated Press)
- Glen Rogers executed in Florida, UPI