TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Supreme Court is reinstating a death sentence against a central Florida man convicted in the fatal stabbing of an elderly Illinois couple at a trailer park.
The court did not agree that Thomas Woodel deserved a new sentencing hearing, as ordered by a circuit judge in 2011. Justice Barbara Pariente dissented in the decision.
This marks the third time that the high court has dealt with whether Woodel deserved a death sentence.
The 44-year-old man was convicted in the 1996 New Year’s Eve murders of 79-year-old Clifford Moody and his 74-year-old wife, Bernice.
The Moodys — winter residents from Kankakee, Illinois — lived at Outdoor Resorts of America in the Four Corners area of Polk County.
Woodel stabbed Bernice Moody 56 times and her husband eight times.
