The man convicted of brutally beating to death a University of Miami linebacker and the killer’s ex-girlfriend almost 30 years ago could be sent back to Death Row in the coming weeks.
The resentencing of Labrant Dennis, convicted of fatally bludgeoning Timwanika Lumpkins and Canes football player Marlin Barnes on April 13, 1996, was set to begin with jury selection on Monday. The killings, prosecutors say, were motivated by jealousy, with Dennis bursting into Barnes’ apartment on UM’s Coral Gables campus, catching him by surprise and beating his face with the butt of a shotgun to the point that his features were “obliterated.”
Dennis then continued his rampage, bashing the back of Lumpkins’ head, according to stories in the Herald’s archives. Dennis and Lumpkins had separated about a week earlier and shared a 3-year-old daughter. Lumpkins was a high-school friend of Barnes.
Dennis, now 52, is back in court in Miami after Florida’s death penalty law was embroiled in controversy.
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