The Life and Crimes of Oba Chandler

"He [Chandler] did not have a soul, I don't think. Or if he did, it was a black one."

- Judge Susan Schaeffer, who presided over Oba Chandler’s 1994 trial.

This story begins on Oct. 11, 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Margaret Johnson gave birth to her fourth child with her husband, Oba Chandler Sr. The child, a boy, was named after his father, and would often go by “Obie”. It became clear from an early age that Oba was going to be a difficult child. School was not something that he viewed as particularly worth his time, and he ended up failing the fourth grade due to truancy.

When Oba was ten years old, his father hung himself in the basement of the Chandler family home. It was Oba’s older sister, Helen, who made the gruesome discovery. Oba Sr.’s extended family were devastated by his death. They refused to believe that he killed himself, and instead pointed the finger at his wife, Margaret, accusing her of killing him. As a result, Margaret did not attend her husband’s funeral, which took place on Jun. 1, 1957.

Accounts of Oba Sr.’s burial vary, but according to some attendees, 10-year-old Oba Jr seemed determined to steal the limelight from his dead father. Some family members claimed that during the burial, as dirt was being thrown into the open grave, Oba jumped in and stomped repeatedly on his father’s coffin.

A Life of Crime

Chandler after an arrest in 1964, age 18 (source: Tampa Bay Times)

Life for Chandler only went downhill after his father’s suicide (the event which his mother blamed for her son’s behavioural issues). At the age of 14, he was arrested for stealing a car, the first of what would be a total of 20 arrests before he turned 18.

Chandler showed no sign of changing his ways after his 18th birthday. He continued to steal cars, and was arrested for possessing counterfeit money. Then his crimes became more serious - he would go on to be arrested and charged with burglary, kidnapping and armed robbery.

It’s unclear when exactly that Chandler began to display predatory behavior. In his late teens, he was arrested for masturbating while peering into a woman’s window. During his early days in Florida, Chandler and an accomplice broke into the home of a couple and robbed them at gunpoint.

As well as robbing them, Chandler had his accomplice tie the man up while he took the woman into the bedroom, where he forced her to strip down to her underwear. Chandler then tied her up and slowly rubbed the barrel of his revolver across her stomach. During this incident, it became evident that Chandler derived sexual pleasure from scaring people.

The “Allure” of Oba Chandler

Despite being a sexual deviant and menace to society, Chandler was never without a woman by his side. They found his “bad-boy” vibe irresistible; he could certainly lay on the charm when he was so inclined. With his thick blonde curls and chiseled jawline, there is no denying that he was handsome in his younger days. Unsurprisingly, Chandler left much to be desired as a boyfriend and a husband. He had an extremely short attention span when it came to women, and was often involved with multiple partners at the same time. While it’s not clear exactly how many times he was married, it has been confirmed that he fathered at least eight children by seven different women.

When Chandler was 16, he began seeing a girl named Martha Lou Glass, who was just 14. They never married, but together they had two daughters, Kristal Sue (born 1963) and Valerie Lynn (born 1964). In December of 1965, Chandler left Cincinnati for Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, where he served in the U.S. Marines for just over a year. When he returned to Cincinnati, he continued his relationship with Martha, but began seeing other women at the same time, one of whom would give birth to his son, Jeffrey Scott.

In 1969, Chandler left Martha for good and married a woman named Jennifer Jones, a Playboy Bunny at the Cincinnati Playboy Club. They were together for a few years, before Chandler moved to St. Paul, Minnesota and married another woman, with whom he fathered another son named Skipper. After this, the details of Chandler’s romantic life are murky. He would have two more children, Toby and Steven, after Skipper was born (but who knows, perhaps there were more).

Still Philandering

Fast forward to the late 1980s. Chandler is 41 years old and engaged to a woman named Barbara Leiby, living in Tampa, Florida. But of course, being Chandler, he is seeing another woman, Debra Whiteman. In Chandler’s opinion, Debra is prettier than Barbara. She is also younger, and doesn’t ask him prying questions about his past or what he gets up to when she’s not around. Chandler has found that over his 25+ years of relationships, there is nothing worse than a woman who will not mind her own business.

Chandler lied to Debra with ease and did not feel bad about it (not that he felt remorse for much of anything he said or did). When Chandler and Debra met, Debra knew nothing about Barbara, and was under the impression that Chandler lived with his mother in a mobile home. She knew that Chandler had been married before (but did not know how many times), and that he had children from previous relationships. Debra herself had been married twice before. She also knew he had been to prison for dealing drugs. Chandler assured her that was all in the past, and she accepted this.

Chandler and Debra on their wedding day (source: Tampa Bay Times)

On May 14, 1988, Oba Chandler and Debra Whiteman married. Less than a year later, in February 1989, Debra gave birth to their daughter, Whitney. Life was going relatively well for the Chandlers, all things considered. Oba had started his own aluminum business named Custom Screens. The couple bought a house at 10790 Dalton Avenue in Tampa. Chandler bought himself a blue-and-white 21” Bayliner boat.

Pure Evil And Utterly Depraved

Chandler developed a new sense of freedom with the purchase of the boat. Being out on the open water of the bay satisfied his need to be alone, away from his wife and new baby. However it wasn’t long before Chandler realized the opportunities the boat presented, namely with women - his other favorite past time.

A smooth talker who could be warm and friendly when he needed to be, Chandler had no problem luring women onto his boat for “sunset cruises”. Being in Tampa, tourists were everywhere. Women often travelled in pairs or small groups.

The murder case of Joan, Michelle and Christe Rogers is covered here. I’m not going to go over it in great detail for this article. Apologies for any repetition.

Joan, Michelle and Christe Rogers (source: Crime Magazine)

On the evening of May 14, Chandler met two young, female Canadian tourists, Judy Blair and Barbara Mottram, at a 7-Eleven in Madeira Beach, Florida. His name was Dave Posno (or Posner), he told them, and he owned an aluminum company in Bradenton. He invited them for a boat ride the next morning. Only Judy accepted his offer. The first trip out on the boat was uneventful but pleasant. Chandler asked Judy if she’d like to come out again that evening to see the sunset from the bay, and she agreed. He urged her to bring her friend with her.

When the time came, however, Judy showed up alone. This irritated Chandler, but they went out anyway. Things seemed normal, as they had during the previous boat trip, but suddenly Chandler’s behavior changed. He began touching and hugging Judy, trying to kiss her and telling her he wanted to have sex. When Judy declined, he got aggressive.

“Is sex worth losing your life over?” Chandler hissed, a menacing glint in his eyes.

Judy pleaded with him to leave her alone, telling him that she was a virgin. This only excited Chandler more. Pinning her down, he raped her on the floor of the boat.

After the rape, he turned the boat around and began heading back to shore. He seemed somewhat manic on the way back, he spoke quickly, trying to make small talk with Judy. Traumatized, Judy was unable to say much. She huddled in the corner of the boat, watching him. Chandler threw up over the side of the boat several times. Judy wondered if this strange reaction was due to guilt.

Chandler on his Bayliner boat (source: Tampa Bay Times)

It is highly likely that the only reason Chandler did not kill Judy is that Barbara was not there, but knew what Chandler looked like - meaning she would have been able to identify him if Judy ended up dead.

The next day, Judy reported the rape to Madeira Beach police. Unfortunately, no forensic evidence could be gathered, but she was able to give an in-depth account of what happened to her, as well as a detailed description of her attacker.

On June 1, just over 2 weeks after the rape of Judy, Chandler struck again. He came across Joan Rogers and her two daughters, Michelle and Christe, who were on vacation in Tampa from Ohio. They were lost, so Chandler wrote down directions to their motel on a brochure. He then invited them for a sunset cruise on his boat that evening. They excitedly took him up on his offer.

That evening, as planned, they met Chandler at the public boat launch. Once they had gotten far enough out into the bay, Chandler tied their wrists behind their backs with yellow rope and put duct tape over their mouths. He most likely raped them, then tied rope around each of their necks. On the end of each rope was a 30lb concrete block.

Chandler couldn’t have been much more sadistic if he tried; he could have put duct tape over the womens’ eyes, but instead he left them uncovered so that each could see the other two suffer. To ensure maximum pain in their final moments, he cast each of them in the water while they were still alive.

On June 4, the three bodies were discovered floating in the bay. Decomposition had produced gasses which caused them to rise to the surface, pulling the concrete blocks up with them.

Dental records were used to identify the bodies as Joan, Michelle and Christe Rogers of Willshire, Ohio. They had left behind a husband and father, Hal Rogers, who did not come on the trip; he needed to stay behind and tend the family dairy farm.

A Much Needed Lead

A month or so into the investigation, St. Petersburg PD, who were investigating the murders of the Rogers women, were not having much luck in tracking down their killer. That is, until the lead detective on the case, Jim Kappel, came across the report on the Madeira Beach rape in the monthly bulletin put out by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

St. Petersburg detective, Jim Kappel (source: Murderpedia)

The similarities between the two cases struck Detective Kappel. When they looked into this Dave Posno (or Posner) character, they could find nobody in the Tampa Bay area by that name.

Kappel and another detective decided to make the trip to Canada to interview Judy Blair and Barbara Mottram. Judy gave them the account as described above, as well as a description of her rapist, which was used to create a composite sketch. Armed with the new information and the sketch, the detectives headed back to Florida.

Chandler Flees

Meanwhile, Chandler was becoming increasingly agitated and began lashing out at Debra. In November, the composite sketch of the Madeira Beach rapist began appearing everywhere. Chandler disappeared. He did not tell Debra where he was going.

Chandler fled to Cincinnati, where he was checked into a dingy motel room. He got in contact with his daughter, Kristal, who was now married to a man named Rick Mays. Clearly overwhelmed from keeping his secret to himself, Chandler confessed to Kristal and Rick that the police in Florida were after him for rape and the murders of three women.

Kristal called Debra, telling her about her father’s confession. Debra had her suspicions, having seen the composite sketch on the news. She thought it looked eerily like her husband. But she did not want to believe that her husband and the father of her child could carry out such heinous acts. She shrugged off Kristal’s warnings.

Just after Thanksgiving, Chandler returned home to Tampa. Debra confronted him about the Madeira Beach rape, which he denied knowing anything about. Taking her husband’s word, as she always had, Debra did not bring it up again.

Nearly Three Years of Nothing

Frustratingly, while investigators received hundreds of tips from the public regarding the man in the composite sketch, none of them came to anything.

Chandler figured that he needed to get out of Florida; Debra insisted that she and Whitney go with him. It was decided that they would go to California, just about as far as one can get from Florida. They left very quickly, leaving the majority of their things at their home in Tampa. It is unknown exactly how long they were gone, driving thousands of miles in Chandler’s Jeep, but they never settled in California. It’s not clear whether they ever even made it there.

It was not long before they ended up back in Florida. Chandler was seriously struggling for cash, so he became an informant for the U.S. Customs and the Tampa Police Department from May to September 1991. Running in the sorts of circles he did, Chandler turned out to be a pretty good snitch. What made him so successful was arguably the lack of remorse he felt at throwing people under the bus, even his own friends.

At some point either in late 1991 or early 1992, the Chandlers moved across the state from Tampa to Port Orange, near Daytona Beach.

The End Of A Dry Spell

By early 1992, leads were beginning to dry up. I go over Chandler’s downfall in greater detail here, but this is a quick rundown of what happened.

Detectives had found a brochure for Clearwater Beach when they searched the Rogers’ family car. On the brochure were handwritten directions to their motel, The Days Inn at Rocky Point. They had the handwriting forensically analyzed and discovered that it did not belong to Joan, Michelle or Christe. It was very unique in the way the letters “T” and “Y” were formed, the forensic documents analyst told detectives.

With few other options left, detectives had billboards put up on Tampa highways with the handwriting blown up, hoping that somebody might recognize it. Low and behold, that’s what happened - in May 1992, a woman contacted St. Petersburg PD, telling them that she recognized it as that of a contractor she had hired. His name was Oba Chandler.

The woman still had the receipt from the job Chandler had done for her. It was, without a doubt, the same handwriting.

Captured, At Long Last

On Sept. 24, 1992, Oba Chandler was arrested at an Interstate 75 gas station near his home in Volusia County, Florida.

Oba Chandler’s 1992 mugshot (source: Wikipedia)

The Clearwater Beach brochure was tested for prints. Fingerprints from Joan Rogers were present, but there was also a clear palm print that not did not belong to her. It was compared with Chandler’s, and turned out to be a match.

Detectives hoped to examine Chandler’s boat for evidence, but it was long gone; he had sold it just 3 months after the murders.

Finally, Judy, the Canadian woman who was raped during her vacation in Florida in May 1989, identified Chandler from a photo as well as a line up. Detectives, at long last, had their guy.

Chandler Maintains His Innocence

On Nov. 10, 1992, Chandler was indicted by a Pinellas County, FL grand jury on three counts of first degree murder. His trial began on Sept. 19, 1994.

Chandler maintained his innocence throughout the trial. During his testimony he claimed he met the Rogers and gave them directions to their motel, but did not see them after that, other than on the news. The prosecutor caught him in a lie about his boat having engine trouble as the reason he was out so late on the night of June 1. Chandler also claimed to have made distress calls to the Coast Guard and Marine Patrol from his boat, but no such calls were ever recorded.

Witnesses who testified at the trial included Judy Blair, who gave a breakdown of the events which took place on May 14 and 15 1989, two weeks before the Rogers were murdered.

Rollins Cooper, a co-worker of Chandler’s, testified that on Jun. 1, Chandler bragged to him that he had a “date” with three women that night. The next morning, he came to work looking noticeably tired and scruffy. He had been out on his boat late into the night, he told Cooper.

Chandler’s daughter, Kristal Mays, testified that her father showed up unannounced in Cincinnati in late 1989 and told her that he was running from the police in Florida because he had killed three women.

The Sentencing of Oba Chandler

On Sept. 29, 1994, Chandler was found guilty on all three counts of murder in the first degree. All 12 members of the jury voted that Chandler be sentenced to death on Nov. 4, 1994.

Chandler during his sentencing hearing in Nov. 1994 (source: Youtube)

In many ways, Chandler’s defiance and callousness during his trial reminded me of Richard Allen Davis, who abducted and murdered Polly Klaas in Petaluma, California in 1993. Davis taunted Klaas’s family members at his trial with derogatory remarks about what he did to her, and gave those in the courtroom two middle fingers after the verdict came back that he would be sentenced to death.

Chandler would become known as one of Florida’s most notorious criminals.

"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,” one juror told the media after the 1994 trial.

When handed his death sentence by the judge, Chandler scoffed. He later told the St. Petersburg Times in an interview that his final words before his execution would be:

“Kiss my rosy red ass!”

Chandler went through a number of appeals to his death sentence while he sat on death row at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida. None of these would ever come to anything. He would never admit to having anything to do with the Rogers murders, but conceded that the incident with Judy Blair on his boat did happen. However, the sex was consensual, he argued, and she had changed her mind halfway through. Judy’s rape case was not prosecuted because Chandler had already received a death sentence for the Rogers murders. Nor did Judy want to go through another trial.

Two Salami Sandwiches On White Bread

On Nov. 15, 2011, Chandler was executed at 4:08 pm at Florida State Prison in Raiford. His final meal was far from extravagant, consisting of two salami sandwiches on white bread with mustard and a cup of coffee.

Chandler would not make a final statement before his execution, but he did leave a handwritten note behind. It read:

“You are killing a innocent man today.”

Chandler’s handwritten statement before he was executed (source: Tampa Bay Times)

Ivelisse Berrios–Beguerisse

The true number of murders Chandler committed is not known, even to this day. Detectives who are familiar with Chandler suspect he may well have killed many more women in Florida in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but they just don’t know. The way in which the Rogers women were killed is strongly suggestive of someone with confidence, who knew what he was doing. Chandler had a very specific modus operandi - inviting unsuspecting, attractive, young female tourists out on his boat. This was also the 80's, when women were far more trusting than they are today. Chandler just seemed like a friendly local who was being nice in offering them a free boat ride...why wouldn’t they take him up on his offer?

In February 2014, their theory proved correct; there were more victims of Oba Chandler. This murder was different from that of the Rogers women, in that the victim was not a tourist. She was a pretty, young female, however, and Chandler turned on his “charm” to gain her trust.

Ivelisse Berrios–Beguerisse was just 20-years-old when she was murdered on Nov. 27, 1990. She was newly married and living in Coral Springs, Florida, with her husband at the time of her death. Ivelisse worked at the Sawgrass Mills mall in a sporting goods store; she was heading to her car, a 1985 Ford Tempo, after her shift when she realized her tires had been slashed. In all likelihood, she was approached by a “friendly” stranger who offered to help. Three hours later, at around 1am, her naked, lifeless body was discovered. There were ligature marks on her wrists and ankles, and duct tape stuck in her hair.

Cold case detective Dan Cucchi, of the Coral Springs PD, explained that during the investigation into Ivelisse’s murder, DNA samples had been collected and processed but they didn’t amount to much. The technology was not as sophisticated as it is now, and there was not a database of criminals’ DNA that they could refer to.

"Back in 1990, rape kits and the DNA collection process were not the same, but now it's way more advanced," Cucchi said. "You can actually take a smaller sample and through the new technology they can develop potential profiles and suspect DNA, where in the past they could not."

Cucchi and his partner in the investigation, Brian Koenig, had the Broward County Sheriff’s Office Crime Lab test the DNA found on Ivelisse’s body again. It was a match to Oba Chandler. As it turned out, he was living just a mile from the Sawgrass Mills Mall at the time.

The detectives contacted Ivelisse’s family, who live in Puerto Rico, and her husband, who had since moved to Mexico, to inform them that after 23 years, they had finally tracked down who killed their loved one.

Florida cold case detectives have been advised that if they are investigating cases which occurred in the late 80’s and early 90’s, they should look into where Chandler was living at the time. The extent of Chandler’s evil and depraved deeds may never be fully known.