Florida executes Larry Eugene Mann

Larry Eugene Mann in 1980

STARKE — Larry Eugene Mann, who abducted and killed 10-year-old Elisa Nelson in 1980 in Palm Harbor, was executed at 7:19 pm Wednesday at Florida State Prison.

Mann, 59, had been on death row for 32 years for the crime, which ranks among the most notorious and shocking in the history of Pinellas County.

He was 27 when he abducted Elisa as she rode her bicycle to school on Nov. 4, 1980.

The same day, authorities were called to Mann's home when he attempted suicide by slashing his forearms with a razor blade. He told responding officers that he had "done something stupid."

In trying to explain the reason for what happened, a psychiatrist testified that Mann suffered from pedophilia. Because of his condition, Mann loathed himself and anyone who might learn of his flaw, including his victims, the doctor testified.

Prosecutors theorized that Mann abducted Elisa with the intention of molesting her, but he was able to resist and abandoned his efforts. When Elisa tried to get away, Mann killed her. He cut her throat and hit her in the head with a pipe. An autopsy on her body, found in an orange grove the day after she went missing, showed no signs of molestation.

Larry Mann in 2013

A jury sentenced Mann to death in April 1981, but legal errors caused him to be resentenced twice — in 1983 and 1990. Both times, juries again recommended death.

Lengthy appeals kept Mann on death row for 32 years.

On March 1, Gov. Rick Scott signed his death warrant.

Earlier this week, Mann's attorneys filed a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking for a stay of execution. Lower courts have previously declined to hear the case.

Mann had a last meal of fried shrimp, fish and scallops, stuffed crabs, hot butter rolls, cole slaw, a pint of pistachio ice cream and Pepsi — which he ate about 10 a.m. He met with a spiritual adviser and two attorneys, Department of Corrections officials said.

Officials described his mood as serious and somber.

At the prayer service at the Cathedral of St. Jude, St. Petersburg Bishop Robert Lynch asked people at the prayer service to take a moment and pray for the [victim's] family. Then he spoke out against the death penalty.

"We take as articles of faith that even one who has fully violated the Fifth Commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill,' should have their life taken by anyone other than the author of all life, the lord God," he said.

"After over 200 years of the exercise of the death penalty in this nation that we love, there is still no valid evidence that it reduces crime, that murders diminish and that the people live in a greater security."

"That same heart and mind which abhors the horror of abortion should logically abhor the state deciding who it is who will live and who will die," the bishop told the group, which had grown to 21 by the end of the half-hour prayer vigil.

Of the more than 400 inmates on Florida's death row, 25 were convicted in Pinellas and 25 in Hillsborough County. More than a dozen of the inmates on death row have been there longer than Mann.

Mann becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Florida and the 75th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1979.

Mann becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1327th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. 

Source: Tampa Bay Times, AP, Rick Halperin, April 11, 2013