Florida Jury to Begin Deliberating Case of Suspected Serial Killer Glen Rogers

TAMPA, Fla. — Suspected serial killer Glen Rogers plunged the knife deep, two times, into a woman he’d met hours earlier at a bar and then twisted it, causing her to die a slow, “horrifying, agonizing death,” a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Assistant State Atty. Karen Cox held up a photograph of Tina Marie Cribbs’ slashed body in a bloody motel bathtub for the seven-woman, five-man jury as she began closing arguments in Rogers’ murder trial.

“This is how she died,” Cox said. “This is where he chose for her to spend the last agonizing moments of her life.”

Rogers, a 34-year-old former carnival worker, sat without emotion as Cox described the Nov. 5, 1995, death of Cribbs, 34, whom he met earlier that day in a bar as she waited to meet her mother. The case is scheduled to go to the jury today. He could be sentenced to death if convicted.

He is also accused of killing three other women in three states--beginning with a woman in Van Nuys--but prosecutors were barred from mentioning those deaths.

Defense attorney Nick Sinardi called the state’s case totally circumstantial, telling jurors the prosecution has no murder weapon, no motive and no witnesses directly connecting Rogers to the stabbing.

Rogers met Cribbs that night and they went to a motel room to have sex, Sinardi said. He said Rogers admits stealing Cribbs’ car, but she was alive when he left town. Sinardi suggested someone else killed Cribbs--perhaps one of the convicted felons who had rented a room in the area.

A day after witnesses saw Rogers leaving the motel, a maid found Cribbs’ body in his room. Rogers was arrested the following week in Cribbs’ car after a nationwide manhunt that ended in a high-speed chase in Kentucky.

“I submit to you if Mr. Rogers had killed Tina Marie Cribbs . . . he would have ditched that car,” Sinardi said.

He rested his case Tuesday. Circuit Judge Diana Allen told jurors she planned to give them instructions Wednesday this morning and then they would begin deliberations.

Rogers also is charged with murder in these cases:

* In Bossier City, La., he is accused of stabbing Andy Jiles Sutton, 37, whose slashed body was found on her water bed in November 1995.

* In Jackson, Miss., he is accused of stabbing Linda Price, 34, whose body was found in her apartment bathtub in November 1995, two days before he met Cribbs.

* In California, he is accused of strangling Sandra Gallagher in Van Nuys.

Rogers also is suspected in the 1993 slaying of his elderly roommate, whose body was found in a Kentucky cabin.