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NBC Miami
February 27, 2014
A drug trafficker who placed a pipe bomb in a gift-wrapped microwave oven in a plot to kill two potential murder witnesses was executed Wednesday for the 1992 death of a Florida highway trooper who became the unintended victim.
Paul Augustus Howell, 48, was pronounced dead at 6:32 p.m. following a lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Starke, the office of Gov. Rick Scott said in an email.
Howell was condemned for the killing of Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Jimmy Fulford on Feb. 1, 1992, when the package exploded during a traffic stop.
Howell’s lawyers had filed an unsuccessful appeal Tuesday to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that a new drug Florida uses for executions wasn’t tested for that purpose. This was the fifth execution in the state using the new drug, midazolam hydrochloride, as part of a three-drug mix.
The Supreme Court rejected Howell’s final appeals Wednesday afternoon.
The death of Fulford saved others, giving some comfort to his family as the execution of the man convicted of killing him approached.
Fulford died in February 1992 along Interstate 10 in Jefferson County when a booby-trapped package exploded during a routine traffic stop.
The bomb was intended for a Marianna woman who lived in an apartment complex with her baby. Another woman and other children lived in the next unit over and the bomb was powerful enough that it would have blown out windows, doors and walls if it was detonated in an enclosed area, according to court records.
“I’m sure there would have been a lot more people killed besides her,” said Tim Fulford, the trooper’s brother. “That is a comfort. He did die saving other people’s lives.”
The man who built the bomb that killed Fulford is scheduled to die by injection on Wednesday, exactly one year after the original execution date set in a process that has been held up by appeals. The time it’s taken for Paul Howell’s sentence to be carried out has been painful for Fulford’s family, especially having to be reminded of the circumstances as Howell’s lawyers successfully delayed the execution the past 12 months, Fulford’s brother said.
