Granville Ritchie: Conviction, Death Sentence, and Current Appeals

Granville Ritchie is a Jamaican-born man sentenced to death in Florida for the 2014 rape and murder of nine-year-old Felecia Williams in Tampa. A Hillsborough County jury convicted him in September 2019 of first-degree murder, sexual battery of a child under twelve, and aggravated child abuse. Judge Michelle Sisco formally imposed the death sentence on September 11, 2020.¹ He remains on death row at Union Correctional Institution and is pursuing post-conviction appeals.²

The Killing of Felecia Williams

On May 16, 2014, Felecia Williams was picked up by Eboni Wiley, a woman her mother Felecia Demerson trusted as a close family friend. Wiley had said she was taking the child to church. Instead, she brought her to Ritchie’s apartment in the Temple Terrace area of Tampa and then left to buy drugs, leaving the nine-year-old alone with him.³⁴

Ritchie sexually assaulted the child and strangled her to death. Trial evidence documented blunt force trauma to her head and body, genital injuries from sexual battery, and fatal manual strangulation.⁵ He put her body in a rolling suitcase, drove to an access road near the Courtney Campbell Causeway, and dumped it into Old Tampa Bay. She was found on the north side of the Causeway the next day, May 17, 2014.⁶

Afterward, Ritchie pressured Wiley to tell police the child had disappeared from a pharmacy. She went along at first, lying to investigators and to the girl’s family before eventually telling the truth about where she had left Felecia.⁷

The Evidence Against Him

The prosecution built a detailed circumstantial case. An FBI cell tower analyst traced Ritchie’s phone moving toward the Courtney Campbell Causeway between 10:36 p.m. and 11:10 p.m. on May 16, 2014, connecting to a tower at Rocky Point near the Causeway at 11:12 p.m. The data placed him near the recovery site for at least an hour. Red light camera footage caught his silver Lexus in movements consistent with the phone records.⁸

Physical evidence tied the car to the dump site. A forensic botanist identified plant material on the vehicle’s headlight as white mangrove, a species that does not grow in Temple Terrace. A forensic scientist used plasma mass spectrometry to compare soil from the Lexus floor mat with samples from the recovery site and concluded there was a 99.5% probability the sediment matched.⁸ Inside his apartment, investigators documented drag marks on the carpet and scuff marks on the walls and doors. On the patio they found a broken plastic suitcase wheel.

One item stood apart from the forensic proof. A 911 call was placed from Ritchie’s phone while he was alone with the child. The call contained no audible speech, only silence, and prosecutors argued the girl had tried to call for help during the attack.⁶

Trial and Verdict

Ritchie was indicted on first-degree murder, sexual battery of a victim under twelve by a defendant over eighteen, and aggravated child abuse.⁵ His trial in Hillsborough County Circuit Court ran roughly two to three weeks in September 2019, before Judge Michelle Sisco.⁹

The defense did not accept responsibility for the crimes. Ritchie’s attorneys pointed at Eboni Wiley as the actual killer, arguing she was angry from a recent argument with the child and influenced by a drug she said made her feel like “Satan was manipulating her.”¹⁰ The jury rejected that theory and, in the week of September 27, 2019, convicted him on all three counts. On the murder charge, jurors found the killing was both premeditated and felony murder.¹¹

The Death Sentence

In the penalty phase, the jury unanimously found three aggravating factors: the victim was under twelve, the murder was committed during a sexual battery, and the crime was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.⁶

The defense presented mitigation about Ritchie’s upbringing and mental health. A video from his family in Jamaica showed the poverty and violence of his childhood in Kingston. Defense experts testified he had frontal lobe damage from childhood injuries and car accidents, impaired executive functioning, and brain scan findings consistent with traumatic injury from early physical abuse.¹¹

After about three hours of deliberation on the evening of September 27, 2019, the jury unanimously recommended death. It was the first unanimous death recommendation in Hillsborough County since Florida changed its capital sentencing law to require jury unanimity.¹¹

Judge Sisco found one statutory mitigating factor, that Ritchie had no significant history of prior criminal activity, and gave it moderate weight along with evidence of abuse by his father. Other mitigation, including his upbringing in poverty, his role as the oldest of eighteen siblings, and his employment history, received little weight. The court concluded the three aggravators “heavily outweigh” the mitigation.⁵ On September 11, 2020, she imposed death for the murder, life without parole for the sexual battery, and thirty years for aggravated child abuse, all consecutive.¹

What Happened to Eboni Wiley

Wiley was not charged with the murder. The Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office said there was no evidence she was involved in or aware of the killing, and that she had lied to police because she believed she was reporting a runaway child. She pleaded guilty to providing false information to law enforcement and agreed to six months in county jail followed by five years of probation. Prosecutors credited her testimony with contributing to Ritchie’s conviction.⁷ At her plea hearing, Felecia Demerson told the court: “I didn’t do anything wrong. My daughter didn’t do anything wrong. But today we are the only ones punished forever while you are punished for six months.”

Direct Appeals

On direct appeal, Ritchie conceded the legal sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions but challenged the penalty phase, arguing prosecutorial misconduct in closing argument, the constitutionality of victim impact evidence, and evidentiary rulings on a defense mitigation video.⁵ On June 9, 2022, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed his convictions and death sentence in full.⁶

He then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to decide whether the Constitution prohibits a prosecutor from suggesting to a capital sentencing jury that a defendant, as a foreigner and immigrant, is unworthy of the trial rights afforded to citizens. His attorneys argued the prosecutor had used anti-immigrant rhetoric and penalized him for exercising his right to counsel, his right to a jury trial, and the presumption of innocence.¹⁰ The Court denied certiorari on March 6, 2023.¹²

Where the Case Stands Now

Ritchie is on death row at Union Correctional Institution and is in post-conviction proceedings. In March 2025, he appeared in the Hillsborough County Courthouse Annex for a multi-day hearing before Judge Sisco, the same judge who presided over his trial.

His attorneys from the Office of the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel argue he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel. They contend his original lawyers failed to retain expert witnesses in botany, soil analysis, and cellphone signal tracking, failed to object to certain comments by witnesses and the prosecutor, and failed to file necessary pretrial motions.² Judge Sisco is expected to rule on whether Ritchie is entitled to a new trial or a new sentencing hearing, with mandatory review of that ruling docketed in the Florida Supreme Court.¹³

1
Death Penalty Information Center. Florida Judge Imposes Death Sentence on Granville Ritchie
2
Tampa Bay Times. Granville Ritchie Murder Death Penalty Appeal
3
Bay News 9. Police Testimony Expected in Trial of Granville Ritchie
4
Fox 13 News. Granville Ritchie Sentenced to Death for Rape, Murder of Felecia Williams
5
FindLaw. Ritchie v. State
6
Supreme Court of Florida. Ritchie v. State, No. SC20-1422
7
Fox 13 News. Eboni Wiley Pleads Guilty to Lying to Law Enforcement
8
Florida State University Law Library. State’s Answer Brief, Ritchie v. State, No. SC20-1422
9
WFLA. Testimony Continues in Trial of Granville Ritchie
10
U.S. Supreme Court. Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Ritchie v. Florida, No. 22-6411
11
Spectrum News. Granville Ritchie Sentencing: Neuropsychiatrist Testifies on Mental Status
12
U.S. Supreme Court. Order List, March 6, 2023
13
Florida Courts. Ritchie v. State, No. SC2025-1135