Oba Chandler

On February 11, 2022, the Oxygen Channel aired an episode of Family Massacre called "The Rogers Family".

On November 19, 2022, the true crime podcast Casefile detailed the case of Jo, Michelle & Christe Rogers in their 232nd episode.

On February 25, 2014, investigators revealed that DNA evidence identified Chandler as the murderer of 20-year-old Ivelisse Berrios-Beguerisse, who was raped and strangled in Coral Springs, Florida, on November 27, 1990.

Chandler was executed on November 15, 2011. He wrote a last statement to prison officials: "You are killing a [sic] innocent man today". The statement was read at a post-execution news conference. In February 2014, DNA evidence identified Chandler as the murderer of Ivelisse Berrios-Beguerisse, who was found dead in Coral Springs, Florida, on November 27, 1990.

After his conviction, Chandler was named by media as one of Florida's most notorious criminals. He said his last words before his execution would be, "Kiss my rosy red ass". In May 2011, comparisons were drawn between Chandler's case and trial in 1994, and the murder case of Caylee Anthony. In both cases, heightened media attention forced the selection of jurors who lived outside the county where the crime had been committed. One of the jurors in Chandler's 1994 trial said, "He scared some of the jurors when he would sit there and stare at you and have that stupid grin on his face. He would make your skin crawl."

On October 10, 2011, Governor Rick Scott signed Chandler's death warrant. His execution was set for November 15, 2011, at 4:00 p.m. His lawyer Baya Harrison said Chandler asked him not to file any frivolous appeals to keep him alive. Harrison said:

On October 12, 2011, Harrison said although he was preparing to file a motion regarding the violation of his client's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights in the case, he was unsure whether Chandler was willing to travel to Clearwater for the court hearing or would agree to the filing of the motion. "He hates coming down to Clearwater. He doesn't like the ride and he's not well", Harrison said. On October 18, Harrison filed a motion against the execution on grounds that the way Florida imposes the death penalty is unconstitutional. A jury may recommend a life sentence or a death sentence, but under Florida law, the judge makes the final decision. A hearing on Chandler's motion was set for October 21 at 1:00 pm; Chandler did not attend. On October 24, Chandler's appeal was rejected because he had already filed an appeal to the Florida Supreme Court prior to the decision. Although the Florida Supreme Court initially scheduled Chandler's appeal to be heard on November 9, 2011, they later cancelled oral argument. On November 7, 2011, the Florida Supreme Court denied Chandler's appeal of his death sentences and death warrant. The Florida Supreme Court had upheld Chandler's death sentence in 1997 and 2003. Chandler's subsequent petition to the United States Supreme Court was also denied.

Chandler awaited execution of his sentence at the Union Correctional Institution. Shortly after the trial and conviction, his wife Debra filed for divorce and their marriage was dissolved a year later. Chandler was no longer allowed to see his daughter Whitney and in accordance with his ex-wife's wishes, he was not allowed to see later photographs of her. In July 2008, Chandler was on Florida's short list of executions.

The case was featured in a 1999 episode of Cold Case Files on A&E titled "Bodies in the Bay," which also focused on the evidence in the case.

The Discovery Channel devoted a one-hour episode of its series Scene of the Crime, titled "The Tin Man", to the murder of the Rogers family. In 1997, a series of articles titled "Angels & Demons", written by Thomas French – which told the story of the murders, the capture and conviction of Chandler, and the impact of the crimes on the Rogers' family and their community in Ohio – was published in the St. Petersburg Times. The series won a 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing.

In 1995, Chandler, some members of his family, and Hal Rogers appeared in an episode of the Maury Povich Show featuring the case. Chandler appeared via satellite link. Chandler's case was featured in a full-hour episode of Crime Stories. The case was shown on an episode of Forensic Files titled "Water Logged" in December 2010. In 2012 Investigation Discovery show On the Case with Paula Zahn aired two episodes called "Murder at Sunset" covering the case. In August 2014, the ID series Murder in Paradise covered the case.

Chandler was found guilty of the murders and was sentenced to death on November 4, 1994. He maintained his innocence and continued to pursue legal appeals while on Florida's death row. He admitted to the Madeira Beach incident but said the sex was consensual and that the victim had changed her mind during the act. Because Chandler had already been sentenced to death for the Rogers murders and because prosecutors did not want to subject Blair to the emotional trauma of a rape trial, he was never prosecuted for her rape.

Judge Susan F. Schaeffer, who presided over the 1994 trial and ultimately sentenced Chandler described him in a 2011 interview as "a man with no soul". She said, "It's the worst case as far as factually, and as far as a defendant without saving grace, that I ever handled. And I represented plenty of people who were not necessarily good people."

The case remained unsolved for over three years, partly due to the volume of tips received by police investigators. The biggest tip came from a Madeira Beach police bulletin that described a similar rape of a 24-year-old Canadian tourist that occurred two weeks before the Rogers' murders. Chandler was arrested for the murders on September 24, 1992. His handwritten directions on a brochure found in the Rogers' vehicle and a description of his boat written by Jo Rogers on the brochure were the primary clues that led to him being named a suspect. Local police posted images of Chandler's handwriting on the brochure on billboards in the Tampa Bay area, leading to a call from a former neighbor who provided a copy of a work order Chandler had written. This use of billboards by law enforcement in the US was unusual at the time.

A former employee of Chandler's testified that he bragged about dating three women on the bay on the night of the murders, and that the next morning he arrived by boat and delivered materials for a job and immediately set out again. In an attempt to establish Chandler's whereabouts on that night, investigators found records of several ship-to-shore telephone calls made from his boat to his home between 1:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., which may have been attempts to explain his absence to his wife and to provide himself with an alibi for the time of the murders. Chandler's daughter Kristal May Sue testified that her father had talked about killing three women and that he was afraid of returning to Tampa. A woman who worked as a maid at the Days Inn said she walked past Chandler on June 1 as she was going to the Rogers' room for room service. She said she did not realize the significance of this sighting until Chandler's arrest in 1992; this sighting has never been confirmed. Michelle Rogers' boyfriend and Hal Rogers also gave evidence during trial.

Investigators originally thought two men were involved in the murders of the Rogers family. This theory was used for an enaction shown in a 1991 episode of Unsolved Mysteries. This theory was dismissed when Chandler was arrested. No evidence of a second man‍—‌other than a former prison cellmate's claim that Chandler said another man, whose identity the cellmate claimed to know but would not reveal‍—‌has ever surfaced. The second-suspect theory was belied by Chandler's approach of two Canadian female tourists‍—‌that he was willing to approach multiple potential targets by himself.

The Rogers murders were featured in a 1991 episode of Unsolved Mysteries, which speculated that there were two attackers. The 2000 book Bodies in the Bay by Mason Ramsey is a fictionalized adaptation of the Chandler case. Author Don Davis in 2007 published the book Death Cruise covering the murders.

On May 26, 1989, Joan "Jo" Rogers, 36, and her daughters‍—‌Michelle, 17, and Christe, 14‍—‌left their family dairy farm in Willshire, Ohio, for a vacation in Florida. It was the first time they had left their home state. Authorities believe Joan became lost on June 1 during the return drive from Orlando to Willshire, and had decided to take an extra vacation day in Tampa. While looking for their hotel they encountered Chandler, who gave them directions and offered to meet them again later to take them on a sunset cruise of Tampa Bay. Joan and her teenage daughters had left Orlando around 9:00 a.m. and checked into the Days Inn on Route 60 at 12:30 p.m.

The victims' bodies were found floating in Tampa Bay on June 4, 1989. The first body was found when several people on board a sailboat crossing under the Sunshine Skyway saw an object in the water. The second body was seen floating off the pier in St. Petersburg, two miles (3 km) north of the first. While the Coast Guard were recovering the second body, a call about a third, which was seen floating 200 yards (200 m) to the east, was received. All three female bodies were found floating face down, bound with a rope around the neck, and naked below the waist.

A woman named Judy Blair testified that on May 15, 1989, two weeks before the Rogers murders, Chandler invited her onto his boat in nearby Madeira Beach for a boat trip on Tampa Bay, raped her and then returned her to shore. Blair had been with her friend Barbara Mottram, who refused Chandler's offer to join them on the boat. After Blair was raped, she told the court she returned to her hotel room where Mottram was waiting. Chandler was not charged with this crime. Blair testified during Chandler's murder trial to help establish his pattern of attack and show the similarities between the two crimes.

Joan, Michelle, and Christe Rogers were buried in their hometown on June 13, 1989, after a funeral service attended by about 300 family members and friends. Numerous police officers were present to keep reporters and television crews out of the church during the service.

Berrios-Beguerisse, a 20-year-old newlywed, was last seen at Sawgrass Mills Mall where she worked at a sporting goods store. When she did not return home, her husband went to the mall and found her car, a 1985 Ford Tempo, with the tires slashed. It is believed Chandler, after watching the victim for two days, slashed the tires, arrived in the guise of a helpful stranger, and offered to help. Three hours after she was reported missing, her body was found under a residential mailbox in a local neighborhood by two men returning from a fishing trip.

Joan Rogers and her daughters were not positively identified until a week after their bodies' discovery, by which time Joan's husband and the girls' father, Hal Rogers, had reported them missing in Ohio. On June 8, a housekeeper at the Days Inn said the Rogers family's room had not been disturbed and the beds had not been slept in. The hotel manager contacted the police. Fingerprints found in the room were matched to the bodies, and final confirmation of their identities came from dental records. Marine researchers at the University of South Florida estimated from currents and patterns that the victims were thrown from a boat‍—‌and not from a bridge or dry land‍—‌between two and five days before they were found. The Rogers' car, a 1984 Oldsmobile Calais with Ohio license plates, was found at the boat dock by the Courtney Campbell Causeway.

Profiling experts speculated Chandler may have killed previously, based on the belief that a first-time killer would not be experienced or bold enough to abduct and kill three women at once. Chandler remained a suspect in the 1982 murder of a woman whose body was found floating off Anna Maria Island until 2011, when the body was identified as 29-year-old Amy Hurst and her husband was arrested and charged with her murder. Chandler was never charged with another murder. All of his appeals of his 1994 conviction were denied; his last was in May 2007.

Chandler was the fourth of five children born to Oba Chandler Sr. and Margaret Johnson, and was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. When he was ten years old in June 1957, his father hanged himself in the basement of the family's apartment. At the funeral, Chandler jumped into his father's open grave as the gravediggers were covering the coffin with dirt. Between May and September 1991‍—‌concurrent with the police investigation of the Rogers family triple murder‍—‌Chandler was an informant for the U.S. Customs Bureau's Tampa office.

Oba Chandler (October 11, 1946 – November 15, 2011) was an American serial killer who was convicted and executed for the June 1989 murders of Joan Rogers and her two daughters, whose bodies were found floating in Tampa Bay, Florida, with their hands and feet bound. Autopsies showed the victims had been thrown into the water while still alive, with ropes tied to a concrete block around their necks. The case became high-profile in 1992 when local police posted billboards bearing enlarged images of the suspect's handwriting recovered from a pamphlet in the victims' car. Chandler was identified as the killer when his neighbor recognized the handwriting.