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Governor signs death warrant for St. Johns County man

By KEN LEWIS
Staff Writer

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	click photo to enlarge  Robinson

A drifter raped and murdered Beverly St. George in a St. Johns County cemetery in 1985. This week, Gov. Jeb Bush signed the death warrant that could push convicted killer Johnny L. Robinson off Death Row and into the grave.

Robinson, 51, is set for execution Feb. 4, 2004, at 6 p.m. Nearly 20 years of appellate work ended against his favor. No more appeals are pending, according to the governor's office.

Court records, information from the governor's office, and an interview with a detective are reflected in the following account.

St. George died brutally among grave sites in Pellicer Creek Cemetery on the night of Aug. 11, 1985. Two bullets from a .22-caliber pistol killed her, one fired point-blank into her cheek.

Robinson and a 16-year-old boy from Hastings had abducted her from her disabled car on the side of Interstate 95. They raped and killed her in the dark grounds off County Road 204. She had meant to drive to Quantico, Va., to attend a child custody hearing.

Terrifying details emerged during the trial and investigation. Robinson was convicted of first-degree murder and received a death sentence. His young codefendant, Clinton Fields, got life after testifying against him.

St. Johns County Sheriff's Capt. Chuck West remembers the Robinson case clearly. It was his first homicide case as a detective.

"What he did to her was horrible," West said.

At first, the evidence amounted to one shell casing, four tire tracks, and a nameless body.

But the point-blank shot to St. George's cheek clearly came from a target practice weapon, sometimes called a bull-barrel weapon, West said.

Investigators searched through burglary reports and found a report of a recently stolen .22-caliber pistol. The owner of the stolen gun gave investigators a tour of his yard, where they collected shell casings. The casings matched the one from the cemetery.

"We were lucky. God, we were lucky on that one," West said.

Witnesses to the burglary had seen a yellow Chevrolet Caprice, West said. So detectives stopped at every restaurant in the county, looking for a Caprice or for anyone who might have seen it. No luck.

St. George's body was still unidentified at this point.

But shortly thereafter, a worker at Charlie T's truck stop on U.S. 1 -- now closed -- called the Sheriff's Office. A yellow Caprice was in the parking lot.

Deputies arrived, found Robinson and Fields, and took them into custody.

At the Sheriff's Office, West saw that the Caprice tires matched the tracks he had taken from the crime scene. He interviewed Robinson, who admitted to the shooting.

"He was just coming up with a story to cover the fact that he'd been caught. He didn't exhibit any remorse about his violence," West said.

During the interviews, the suspects explained how and where they encountered the woman they killed: on the side of I-95 in Flagler County. With that information, investigators tracked down a vehicle that had been impounded off I-95 soon after the killing. From there, they identified the victim.

"You can see, the case was difficult," West said.

And the suspects spun their yarns.

Court records show Robinson claiming that sexual activities between him and St. George were consensual. She was on the hood of his car that night, he claimed. But he insulted her, and she started fighting him, Robinson said. The pistol went off accidentally. Scared that no one would believe it was accidental, he shot her again, he said.

But Fields told investigators a different story. He said Robinson hand-cuffed her on the highway, West said.

They both assaulted her, and Robinson shot her.

The hand-cuffs Fields referred to were found in the Caprice, along with St. George's keys, West said.

The two men fled with St. George's purse and burned her belongings, according to information from the governor's office.

Fields and Robinson were convicted in 1986. It wasn't the first for Robinson. He was convicted of rape in Virginia, and had other violent charges pending against him.

But his slaying conviction marked the beginning of the legal work, not the end.

Between 1986 and 2002, Robinson's case bounced between the Florida Supreme Court, the St. Johns County Courthouse, the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeal for the 11th Circuit.

In 1986, Robinson's conviction was affirmed, but his death sentence was remanded to St. Johns County for re-sentencing. In 1989, he was given the death penalty again. The U.S. Supreme Court denied the case in 1991. Petitions to the federal court and federal appellate court in the following decade were unsuccessful.

The governor's legal office monitors cases like this, according to Press Secretary Alia Faraj. Once an inmate's appeals have run out and there is an end to the process, the legal office presents the death warrant to Bush, Faraj said.

Bush signed it Thursday afternoon.

Robinson, one of 365 men and women on Florida's Death Row, is set to be executed in Florida State Prison in Starke, by an anonymous citizen who will be paid $150 for it.