Oba Chandler
Autopsies indicated the women had been thrown into the water one by one while still alive. Chandler also remains a suspect in a 1982 murder of a woman found floating off Anna Maria Island.
The case became historic as the police used billboards with information and photos of the victims, spreading them all over Tampa in an attempt to find more information about the killer. This method had never been used before, and became useful in searches for missing people later on.
Chandler is currently incarcerated at Union Correctional Institution in Florida.
Chandler was working as a aluminium building contractor prior to arrest, and against the advice of his attorneys, testified in his own defense. He admitted that he had met the Ohio women and had given them directions, but claimed he never saw them again except in the newspaper and on the billboards set up by investigators.
Investigators originally theorized that there were two men involved in the murders of the Rogers women.
This theory was reflected in a episode of the television show Unsolved Mysteries, in a re-enactment of the crime showing two men leaving the dock with the three women on board a boat. Most people involved with the investigation are today certain that Chandler acted on his own when killing the three Ohio women, even though some have stated concerns over the probability that one man could kill a family of three without any help from a second assailant.
In July of 2008, it was revealed that Chandler was on Florida's short-list of executions.
Facts leading up to the crime
Joan ("Jo") Rogers, 36, and her daughters, Michelle (17) and Christe (14) left their family farm on May 26, 1989 in Willshire for a vacation in Florida.
They had never before left the state of Ohio.
Speculation of crime itself
On June 1, 1989, while heading home, authorities believe the women became lost and encountered Chandler, who gave them directions and offered to meet them again later to take them on a sunset cruise of Tampa Bay. It is known that the Rogers women left Orlando that morning around 9 a.m. and checked into the Days Inn (motel) on State Route 60 at 12:30 p.m.
Snapshots recovered from a camera left in their car showed the last picture of Michelle while she was alive and even the sun setting on the same bay where their lives would later end. They were last seen alive at the hotel restaurant around 7:30 p.m.
It is believed they boarded Chandler's boat at the dock on the Courtney Campbell Causeway between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m., and that they were dead by 3 a.m.
The discovery of the bodies
The women's bodies were found floating in Tampa Bay on June 4, 1989, bound hand and foot with cement blocks tied to their necks and duct tape over their mouths. Autopsies indicated the women had been thrown into the water while still alive.
This was bolstered by the water found in the lungs and the fact that Michelle had freed one arm from her bonds before succumbing. The blocks were tied on their necks to make sure they died from either suffocation or drowning, and to make sure the bodies were never found.
The bodies were found when they bloated due to decomposition and floated to the surface.
Subsequent investigation
The women would not be positively identified until a week later, by which time they were reported missing by the husband and father, Hal Rogers, in Ohio. Fingerprint matches were made to the bodies from those found in the room.
Final confirmation of their identification came from dental records sent from the Rogers' dentist in Ohio. Marine researchers at Florida International University studied the currents and patterns from and confirmed that they were tossed from a boat and not from a bridge or dry land, and that it had happened anywhere from two to five days before they were found.
Also, authorities had posted the handwriting from the brochure on billboards, which was historic as it was used for the first time in an attempt to find the unknown killer, and this led to a tip from a former neighbor who was able to provide a copy of a work order that Chandler had written. Moreover, Chandler had sold his boat and left town with his family soon after the billboards appeared all over the Tampa Bay area.
Witnesses for the Prosecution
Another lead was that on May 15, 1989 (two weeks prior to the murders), Chandler had lured Canadian tourist Judy Blair on to his boat in nearby Madeira Beach, raped her, then dropped her off back on land.
Blair made her way back to her hotel room where her friend Barbara Mottram was waiting. He was not charged or tried for this crime. It is thought he did not murder her because the friend Mottram refused his offer to join them on the boat, a decision which more than likely saved both their lives.
and 5 a.m.; probably an attempt to explain to his wife his absence, as well as to provide himself with an alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the murders.
Second suspect
Investigators originally theorized that there were two men involved in the murders of the Rogers women. Other than a claim by a former prison cellmate that Chandler has said there was another man involved, of whom the cellmate claimed to know the identify but would not name him, no evidence has ever surfaced regarding the involvement of anyone other than Chandler.
Yet he never came forward to tell authorities that he had seen the women. He explained that the reason he was so late in coming home was that his engine would not start, which he attributed to a leak he claimed to have found near dawn in the gas line.
Finally, he claimed he flagged down a Coast Guard patrol boat, but they were busy and promised to send him help. This defense won him few sympathizers on a jury that quickly saw through his façade, not to mention the inconsistencies in his statements.
He still claims he never met the Rogers women after that morning when he gave them directions. The series told the story of the murders, the capture and conviction of Oba Chandler, and the impact of the crimes on the Rogers' family and community in Ohio, most notably their husband and father, Hal Rogers.
Hal Rogers said later that he had promised the family to make bail and would not go back on his promise.