A man was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday in a brutal murder of his roommate last year in Sebring, the Highlands County Sheriff's Office said.
Richard Conway Strickland III, 51, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on May 2.
According to the sheriff's office, Strickland stabbed Shirley Anne Temple, 51, 99 times on May 16, 2017. He used five different knives, getting a new one whenever the weapon he used broke or bent, deputies said.
Sixteen of the stab wounds were in her back, indicating she was trying to get away. Other wounds were defensive as she tried to fight off Strickland.
“She was literally stabbed from her head to her feet,” Assistant State Attorney Steve Houchin told the court.
When deputies arrived at the scene, they said Strickland was covered head to toe in blood.
Strickland, a former sanitation worker for the city of Sebring, told a relative before the crime that he was going to kill Temple. He said the same thing to the victim before starting to stab her, deputies said.
Strickland said he didn't remember much of the attack other than grabbing the first knife, but testified that Temple “didn’t do anything wrong. That girl did not deserve anything like that. She was a young, beautiful woman, full of life.”
Strickland’s attorney sought a sentence of 30 years, but Houchin argued in his request for a life sentence that despite the charge being dropped from first- to second-degree murder, “this certainly was a vicious, viscous second-degree murder. It’s hard to imagine a more vicious crime.”
Judge Peter Estrada agreed, citing Strickland’s two convictions for felony domestic violence as part of the reason, but mostly speaking of the nature of the crime.
“This was a brutal attack, carried out in such a manner … that there was literally blood everywhere. Ninety-nine times, you stabbed someone who was supposed to be important in your life. When one knife broke, you went and got another knife. You have lost the right to live among us.”
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