DeSantis signs death warrant for Brevard man convicted of killing Melbourne nurse in 1988

Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a death warrant for a Brevard County man who confessed to a prosecutor his role in the 1988 murder and rape of a nurse during a random break-in of a Melbourne condominium.

DeSantis signed the warrant for 61-year-old death row inmate James Phillip Barnes on Thursday and formally alerted the warden at Florida State Prison. The execution date is Aug. 3, according to the governor’s letter.

Barnes, who waived his right to a jury and represented himself in the case, pleaded guilty in 2006 to the first-degree murder of 41-year-old Patricia "Patsy" Miller along with burglary, two counts of sexual battery with a weapon and arson. He has been on death row since the conviction.

The case has been upheld or reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court, along with state and federal appellate courts.

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Miller’s homicide went unsolved for a decade before Barnes confessed to killing the nurse in a letter he wrote to an assistant state attorney in 2005. Previously, in 1997, DNA evidence was matched with Barnes, who had already been questioned in the case, but he refused to talk with Brevard County sheriff's agents, court records show. No charges were filed until an indictment was handed down by a Brevard County grand jury.

In 1998, Barnes was already serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife, Linda Barnes, who was strangled to death on Dec. 11, 1997. The letter in which he confessed to killing Miller was sent after Barnes converted to Islam, telling prosecutors he wanted to clear his conscience while fasting during Ramadan, a holy month on the Islamic calendar.

"I murdered her [Patricia Miller] so [there] would be no witness or complaint against me," Barnes wrote in the letter, court documents show.

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Investigators said Barnes, who did not know Miller, entered her River Oaks Condominium through a bedroom window on April 20, 1988.

He confronted Miller at knifepoint in her restroom and sexually assaulted her. He then attacked her with a hammer and bound her with his shoelaces, face down on the bed, court records show. He set the room, with Miller — already dead — inside, on fire, court records show.

There have been four executions in Florida this year — all by lethal injection.

J.D. Gallop is a criminal justice/breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or jgallop@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @JDGallop.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: James Barnes, on death row in Florida, to be executed in August