Accused Florida serial killer accepts plea deal, will serve 4 consecutive life terms

TAMPA, Fla. — A Florida man accused of killing four people over several weeks nearly six years ago pleaded guilty to murder charges on Monday, accepting a plea deal that will allow him to avoid the death penalty, prosecutors said.

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Howell Emanuel Donaldson III, dubbed the “Seminole Heights serial killer,” pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and will serve four consecutive sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

“There is no question this is and always will be a death penalty case,” Hillsborough County State Attorney Suzy Lopez said during a news conference. “This coward committed unspeakable acts and wreaked havoc on our community for weeks on end. He will now be locked in a prison cell for the rest of his life where he will make no more headlines.”

Donaldson’s defense attorneys announced the deal in court on Monday morning, the Times reported Lopez said that the defense approached her office 2½ weeks ago with the offer, according to the newspaper.

Donaldson was arrested in the fall of 2017 and accused of the murders of Benjamin Mitchell, 22; Monica Hoffa, 32; Anthony Naiboa, 20; and Ronald Felton, 60, WFTS-TV reported. The four victims were killed in the Seminole Heights neighborhood of Tampa over a 51-day period. Each victim was killed during the early morning hours between Oct. 9, 2017, and Nov. 14, 2017, according to WFLA-TV.

Police received a break in the case on Nov. 28, 2017, when a manager at a McDonald’s restaurant in Tampa’s Ybor City district approached a policeman and said that one of her employees had given her a plastic sandwich bag that she believed contained a weapon, the Times reported.

She said the employee, later identified as Donaldson, told her to hold it while he went to get some cash. He explained that he was getting ready to leave the area because he had “done something bad that he could not take back,” Assistant State Attorney Scott Harmon said in court.

The weapon was tested, and firearms analysts matched the gun to casings found at the murder scenes, the Times reported.

Family members did not hold back in their anger at Donaldson, according to the newspaper.

“I wanted them to stick a needle in your arm,” Hoffa’s father, Kenny Hoffa, said in remarks directed at Donaldson. “But then I thought that is no way for you to go. Because we are all suffering every day. And now you are going to suffer just like we do.”

“I want you dead,” Mitchell’s sister, Nakeshia Brown, told Donaldson. “Hate is such a strong word, but I hate you. ... I wish you pure hell when you walk back into those gates.”