1926–27 Tampa murders

Between April 1926 and May 1927, ten people were murdered in Tampa, Florida, in a series of incidents that Tampa investigators and later accounts believed were connected, though only some were formally adjudicated.

The first killing occurred on April 28, 1926, when Tampa police were called to 508 Nebraska Avenue after reports that newspaper vendor Charles "Blind Charlie" Manuel was attacking a woman. Officers found Emma Hilliard decapitated and Manuel, intoxicated, holding a knife. Manuel, who claimed Hilliard was his girlfriend despite her being married, pleaded guilty in July 1926, though he said he had no memory of the crime due to intoxication and relied on witness accounts.

On June 28, 1926, three members of the Rowell family and their tenant, mechanic Charles Alexander, were found killed with an axe at 116 South Nebraska Avenue. Rumors circulated that family patriarch Bee Rowell had claimed Manuel was innocent of the Hilliard killing and knew the real culprit. Investigators questioned several people but filed no charges, and a re-examination of the Hilliard case found the witnesses against Manuel to be unreliable, though insufficient evidence existed to clear him.

On May 27, 1927, five members of the Merrell family, including five-week-old Lester Merrell, were found killed in their home. Two children, Kenneth (15) and Hugh (8), survived; Hugh had hidden under a bed during the attack. An unusual hammer, a railroad spike driver, was recovered at the scene, suggesting the attacker might be a railroad worker.

The day after the Merrell killings, Lieutenant D. Z. Meeks located evidence at a nearby lumber yard suggesting someone had camped there, including broken matches matching those found at the crime scene. Officers arrested Benjamin Franklin Levins, an itinerant laborer, at the site. Physical evidence, including a matching boot print, tied him to the Merrell home. Levins initially implicated an acquaintance, Leonard Thompson, but after viewing the victims' bodies multiple times, Levins confessed, stating he had mistaken the Merrell family for a previous occupant, the Ryles family, against whom he apparently held a grievance.

Public anger following news of the confession led to a mob of more than 1,500 people storming the county jail on May 29, 1927. Florida National Guard troops opened fire, ultimately killing four people and wounding 33 during two rushes on the jail. Twenty men were arrested; seven later pleaded guilty to lesser charges and paid fines, while charges against six others were dismissed.

Levins was later moved to Orlando, where he also confessed to the Rowell murders. At his July 1927 trial, he claimed self-defense in the killing of Herman Merrell and said Thompson had killed the rest of the family, but he was convicted of the Merrell murders and sentenced to death. Thompson was acquitted in a separate trial. Levins was executed in Florida's electric chair on November 22, 1927, maintaining his innocence to the end without a formal final statement. Manuel, who had pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the Hilliard case, was released from prison on November 15, 1930.