Convicted rapist and killer Loren Cole, scheduled to die by lethal injection on August 29, said he was the victim of childhood violence and sexual abuse at a state-run school. In March, the Floridian Senate passed legislation awarded $20 million in financial compensation to former pupils at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, where sexual and physical abuse were rife.
Democratic Senator Darryl Rouson, who sponsored the bill, said the estimated $50,000 each for the victims was “a small token” of recognition of their suffering, but it was a step in the right direction.
Hundreds of boys are thought to have died at the institution, which opened in 1900 as a young offender facility but was later populated by kids facing minor charges such as skipping school and orphans with nowhere else to go. Allegations of abuse date back as early as 1903, but despite some investigations dating from the 1980s onward, the state did not close it down until 2011. Allegations included torture, rape, whipping, and chaining children to walls.
Loren Cole’s attorneys pleaded to Florida’s Supreme Court to stop the execution because their client suffered extensively at the institution and was also suffering from Parkinson’s disease, but the Court rejected the argument.
Cole and an accomplice, William Paul, befriended two siblings while camping at Ocala National Forest in 1994. The brother and sister, aged 18 and 21, were both students in the Sunshine State when they met Cole and Paul, who offered to show them a pond located in the forest after the group had sat together around a campfire.
On their way to the pond, Cole and Paul attacked them, cutting the 18-year-old brother’s throat and tying up and raping the 21-year-old woman. They left her tied to a tree overnight and returned to rape her again the next day. She eventually managed to escape and flagged down a motorist for help. Police found her brother’s body lying face down in the forest.
The suspects were convicted on rape and murder charges, with Paul sentenced to life behind bars and Cole receiving the death penalty. His execution, signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, is the first in Florida since Michael Zack was executed for murder last October.
