FL v. Tony Wiggins

Tony Wiggins was tried for his life in Bartow, Florida, on three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Brandon Rollins, Keven Springfield, and Damion Tillman, three friends ambushed on what was supposed to be a night-fishing trip outside Frostproof in 2020. The State sought the death penalty. On September 29 the jury found him guilty on all three counts. On October 5 the same jury recommended life without parole on each count, and on October 9 the judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Two other people were charged the night this case broke, and neither of them was the man who stood trial. Wiggins' brother, William "Robert" Wiggins, and his girlfriend, Mary Whittemore, were each charged only with accessory after the fact to a capital felony, not murder. Both have already resolved their cases by plea: Whittemore was sentenced in 2024 to four years, and Robert Wiggins signed a plea deal expected to put him on the stand against his own brother. Only Tony Wiggins went to trial. Only Tony Wiggins faced the death penalty.

That was the tension going in: the State asked twelve jurors for a death sentence while the two people closest to him had pleaded to a lesser charge. On the record we watched, neither of them testified in front of the jury. Robert Wiggins was sworn only for a hearing outside the jury's presence, and the State did not call him. Florida lets a jury recommend death on an 8-4 vote, the lowest unanimity requirement in the country, and this jury recommended life. We watched the case and the machinery of Florida's death penalty together. Start with the background report below, then go through the whole trial with us.