WPTV
January 22, 2014
A South Florida drug trafficker convicted of killing a state trooper with a pipe bomb is once again scheduled to die.
Gov. Rick Scott on Friday set Paul Augustus Howell’s new execution date for Feb. 26, according to a letter Scott sent to the warden of Florida State Prison.
Scott signed a death warrant for Howell last January, but the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked the execution. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi certified on Wednesday that the stay had been lifted.
Howell was convicted of killing Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Jimmy Fulford with a bomb placed inside a gift-wrapped microwave oven 22 years ago. Authorities said the booby-trapped package was intended to kill two women in the Panhandle town of Marianna because they knew too much about a drug-related murder in Broward County.