TAMPA, Fla., Sept. 7 (UPI) -- A Tampa, Fla., man sentenced to die 23 years ago for the deaths of an elderly couple has died in prison of natural causes, state authorities said.
Alphonso Green, 58, had exhausted most of his appeals but was seeking to be released on grounds his lawyer had been ineffective, Assistant State Attorney Chris Moody said.
Green died Thursday of cancer at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Moody told the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. No execution date had been set.
Green needed money for crack cocaine when he went to the Tampa home of Robert J. Nichols, 77, and Dora V. Nichols, 72, the night of Oct. 10,1986, killing them with a butcher knife, Moody said.
Neighbors heard them pleading for their lives, Patricia Anderson, 70, the Nichols' daughter, told the Times.
"I'm going to try to just put that chapter behind me and get him out of my life," Anderson, of Tampa, said of Green's death. "But I can never get over losing my parents."
