Florida Supreme Court upholds death sentence for man who raped & killed girl, babysitter in 1990

FORT MYERS, Fla. — The Florida Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the convictions and death sentences of Joseph Zieler for the 1990 murders of an 11-year-old girl and her babysitter, clearing the way for his execution after decades of the case remaining unsolved.

Zieler, 61, was sentenced to death in 2023 for the slayings of Robin Cornell and Lisa Story. The decision by the state’s highest court marks a pivotal moment in one of Southwest Florida’s most notorious cold cases, which saw no progress until a 2016 DNA match linked Zieler to the crime scene.

The murders occurred in May 1990 at a Cape Coral apartment. Robin’s mother, Jan Cornell, returned home to find the bodies of her daughter and Story, her roommate. Investigators determined both victims had been sexually assaulted and suffocated. The case went cold for 26 years until Zieler was arrested on an unrelated assault charge involving his son; a subsequent DNA submission to the CODIS database matched forensic evidence collected from the 1990 crime scene.

A Lee County jury convicted Zieler of two counts of first-degree murder in May 2023. During the penalty phase, the jury recommended death by a 10-2 vote. Under a Florida law signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in April 2023, a unanimous jury is no longer required for a death sentence; instead, a judge may impose the penalty if at least eight jurors recommend it. Zieler’s appeal challenged the constitutionality of this non-unanimous threshold and raised claims regarding newly discovered evidence, all of which the Supreme Court rejected Friday.

The affirmation of Zieler’s sentence comes amid an unprecedented surge in capital punishment in the state. Florida carried out 19 executions in 2025—the highest single-year total in state history—and has continued a brisk pace into 2026. This "execution spree" followed legislative shifts that not only lowered the jury threshold for the death penalty but also expanded the list of aggravating factors. Florida currently accounts for a significant plurality of all executions nationwide, a trend that critics attribute to aggressive state policies while proponents cite it as the long-awaited resolution of decades-old capital cases.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier praised the court's ruling, stating that the decision ensures Zieler "will never see the outside of a prison cell again." Zieler remains in the custody of the Florida Department of Corrections pending a death warrant.

Source: DPN, News Outlets, AP, Staff, AI April 18, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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