A Pair Of Serial Killers Were Charged In Rape And Murder Cold Cases Of Two Florida Women

In 2020, Robert DuBoise was exonerated after four decades of wrongful imprisonment for the murder of Barbara Grams. Two years later, DNA evidence helped solve the case.

August 09, 2022
Barbara Grams [left] and Linda Lansen [right] were both found murdered and raped in Tampa, Florida in 1983.

In 2020, Robert DuBoise was exonerated after four decades of wrongful imprisonment for the murder of Barbara Grams. Two years later, DNA evidence helped solve the case.

Photo by: Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office

Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office

By: Robin Raven

On Aug. 4, 2022, a pair of serial killers, Amos Robinson, 58, and Abron Scott, 57, were indicted for the 1983 rapes and murders of 19-year-old Barbara Grams and 41-year-old Linda Lansen from Tampa, Florida.

According to The New York Post, Tampa’s Conviction Review Unit discovered DNA evidence from Grams’ rape kit that led to the 2020 exoneration of Robert DuBoise, who had been wrongfully convicted of murdering Grams. DuBoise served 37 years behind bars for the crime he did not commit. Lansen’s murder had long been considered a cold case.

Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren announced that conclusive DNA evidence linked Robinson and Scott, two men who were already serving time for the October 1983 murder of Carlos Orellana, with the murders of Grams and Lansen.

On July 10, 1983, Lansen, a freelance photographer, left her apartment and never returned. Her body was discovered the next morning in a ditch in the Town N’ Country area of Hillsborough County. She had been raped and shot multiple times, according to KIRO 7.

About five weeks later, Grams was raped and beaten to death while walking home from work. Her body was found bludgeoned in the parking lot of a dental office ten blocks from her house.

“We now know these two men carried out a sinister spree of rape and murder in Tampa Bay in the summer and fall of 1983,” Warren stated, later adding, “They are still alive, and they will finally face a reckoning for what they did.”

The Innocence Project of Florida reports that Robert DuBoise was the 30th person to be exonerated after being sentenced to death in Florida. He’s currently seeking compensation from the state.

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