Advertisement

Duane Owen Wiki – Duane Owen Biography

FLORIDA: Duane Owen, a Florida man convicted of raping and killing a 14-year-old girl and a 38-year-old woman in two separate attacks in 1984, is due to be executed by lethal injection next month. Despite multiple calls by the perpetrator to revoke his death sentence, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant last week and scheduled his execution for June.

The 62-year-old man will reportedly be executed inside Florida State Prison at 6:00 p.m. m. of June 15. The sentencing comes after Owen served a 40-year sentence in a Raiford prison cell. He was arrested the same year he committed the crimes and convicted of both murders in 1986. Owen’s death by lethal injection will mark the fourth scheduled execution in Florida this year.

Owen is a 62-year-old rapist and murderer from Florida. He was arrested in 1984 for a robbery in Boca Raton and later convicted of the 1984 murders and sexual assaults of 14-year-old Karen Slattery and 38-year-old Georgianna Worden. Owen confessed to both crimes after his arrest. He was charged with first-degree murder, sexual assault with a deadly weapon and trespassing with an armed and dangerous weapon, court documents reveal.

Advertisement

Duane Owen Age

The age of Duane Owen is 62 years.

Also Read

Who was Mariyah Ezell ? Wiki,Bio, Age, Family, 14-year-old girl found shot dead on South Carolina road

Who is DaJuan Evans? Wiki, Bio, Age, family, Charged with murder of Sheila Wallace after 4 years

Advertisement

Two women found dead in South Knoxville, Searching for a man suspected in a double murder

Duane Owen will be executed by lethal injection

He was convicted of first degree murder on both counts in March 1986, and a jury recommended a death sentence. In January 1992, a Florida Supreme Court upheld the convictions and declared that Owen should be sentenced to death. Owen was also accused of attacking two other women at his home, but both survived, according to the Associated Press.

His appeals and writs of habeas corpus were denied by state and federal judges between September 2000 and May 2009, the Law and Crime Network reported. Owen served 40 years in a Raiford prison, and Governor DeSantis attached his death sentence to the Florida State Prison Warden on May 9, 2023. He confirmed that Owen would be executed by lethal injection around 6:00 p.m. m. of June 15.

Advertisement

Around 6:30 p.m. m. on March 24, 1984, 14-year-old Slattery was left at the Helm’s Delray Beach home to care for the family’s two children. The teen was reportedly a scuba diver in school, loved to do her friends’ hair and recently had her braces removed, the Law and Crime network reported. A little after midnight, the Helmses returned home to notice a pool of blood in the living room with a hammer next to it.

The Helm family patriarch told his wife to go to a neighbor’s house and call 911. Shortly after, he saw a trail of blood leading to the master bedroom. While his two daughters were safely asleep in his bedroom, investigators found Slattery dead in the bedroom. Reports suggest that her blouse and underpants were pushed up to the shoulders and a coroner said he died of 18 stab wounds. The teenager’s lung reportedly collapsed while she was fighting for her life and autopsy results showed that she was sexually assaulted after her death.

Five days after Slattery’s death, Worden, 38, was brutally attacked and murdered inside her Boca Raton home while her two children slept inside. Her children found her dead the next morning as they were getting ready for school. Authorities revealed that Worden was beaten to death with a hammer and sexually assaulted. In May 1984, Owen was arrested for a robbery in Boca Raton that was reported on the same day as Worden’s murder.

Advertisement

Due to the close nature of the crimes, investigators believed that Owen was likely responsible for both the robbery and the murder of Worden in Boca Raton. During the trial, prosecutors said that despite Slattery being stabbed to death and Worden beaten to death, investigators realized that the remaining facts of the murders were virtually identical. After Owen was taken into custody, authorities confirmed that a shoe print left at the house where Slattery was killed matched one of Owen’s. He later confessed to both the murders and the assault.

In an audio transcript played during Owen’s murder trial, the criminal could be heard confessing to investigators about Slattery’s murder. He said he broke into the Helms house through the bedroom window earlier in the night and saw Slattery braiding the girls’ hair. He decided to go have a few drinks at a local bar before attacking her again. Owen said that he jumped back into the master bedroom through the window around 11:00 p.m. m., almost two hours after the initial search of him.

He then grabbed a pair of women’s gloves that he found in the room and took a hammer from the bedroom closet before looking through the master bedroom door and closing the girl’s bedroom door. Owen saw Slattery watching TV in the living room, who eventually saw him and ran over to the phone. The man then lunged at the teenager and began stabbing her. “Then I took her to the bedroom, I just grabbed her feet and drugged her, with her head thrown back, and I just closed the door,” Owen confessed. “I just raped her,” he said. He was sentenced to death in March 1986 and his execution is scheduled for the next month.

Advertisement

Social media users took to Facebook to react to the update on Owen’s execution. “That is wonderful news. God bless the Slattrey family, they sure deserve this justice,” wrote one. “As much as it breaks my heart for the Slattery family. Hopefully there will be a small piece in which they feel that justice has been done,” added another. “I was 18 when this POS murdered Karen Slattery, now I’m turning 60. Way overdue. The way the law protects these vermin, you’d think they’re an endangered species,” a third commented.

One simply said: “Burn in hell pos”, while another mentioned: “My heart aches for Carol and the entire Slattery family. My prayers for Carol and all who were blessed to know Karen and have her in their lives. This POS has lived on taxpayer pennies for 39 years…I can’t tell how I really feel about him…he should die a slow and painful death!Read More……

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top