Former Florida police officer Otto Lenke was sentenced to death for shooting his romantic rival three times and lighting him on fire, a killing a judge called one of the most heinous imaginable.
Circuit Court Judge Michael Linn imposed the sentence at the St. Lucie County Courthouse after a jury convicted the 67-year-old of first-degree murder. The victim was 57-year-old Richard Benson, owner of Fast Frank’s Cycle Concepts in Fort Pierce, about 130 miles north of Miami. Benson died on February 17, 2021, after Lenke shot him and poured denatured alcohol over him while he was still moving.
Prosecutors argued jealousy drove the attack. Benson had been dating Lisa Diggs, a woman Lenke once dated and had known for a decade. A Florida jury of seven women and five men recommended death by an 11-1 vote after convicting Lenke in May. The case still faces mandatory review by the Florida Supreme Court under state law.
Daily Mail reporting detailed how the judge described Lenke’s conduct in the sentencing order. Linn wrote that Lenke carried out a cold and calculated plan against Benson in a manner few crimes match.
"executed a cold and calculated plan" to murder Benson "in one of the most heinous, atrocious, and cruel ways imaginable,"
Linn also called the death sentence “appropriate” and “just” for the first-degree murder of Benson. That language tracks what the court record showed about planning, the weapon, and the fire.
According to the sentencing order summarized in court coverage, Lenke drove roughly 40 minutes to Benson’s motorcycle repair shop. He waited about 20 minutes, then approached and shot Benson in the back at nearly point-blank range. Three shots total. Then he poured two containers of denatured alcohol on Benson while the mechanic was still moving and set him on fire.
Lenke had removed the license tag from his car beforehand. He wore a helmet and gloves. When Benson reached toward the door, Lenke pulled him back inside. Surveillance captured the entry, the killing, and the exit. Investigators later found three spent shell casings and two empty cans of denatured alcohol near the door.
Capital cases of this severity often draw national attention to how states handle the worst offenders, including high-profile death sentences abroad for mass violence. Florida’s process still requires the state supreme court to review Lenke’s sentence before any execution can move forward.
A Pontiac Bonneville seen near the shop matched a car registered to Lenke but primarily used by his daughter. Phone evidence from a search warrant placed Lenke’s phone at his residence during the killing, then showed it moving afterward toward the shoreline of the Indian River Lagoon near Sebastian. A.40-caliber Glock recovered from the lagoon was consistent with the murder weapon. Records did not identify who bought the secondhand gun.
Diggs told investigators she had known Lenke for 10 years. She said she befriended him after losing her husband to cancer seven years earlier. She described their past relationship as briefly romantic at one point and later platonic before the killing. She also said Lenke carried a gun everywhere.
On January 19, Lenke delivered a wooden boat he had built for Diggs. While he was there, Benson called her. Lenke became emotional. He asked why she did not love him and whether it was because she was seeing someone. Prosecutors used that sequence to argue the motive was jealousy after Diggs began dating Benson.
Diggs later identified Lenke on surveillance video by his particular walk, his stomach, and a black motorcycle helmet. She testified at trial. Lenke was jailed two days after Benson’s death once investigators tied him to the crime. His attorney, Robert Bruton, was reached for comment; no statement was reported.
Debates over capital punishment continue in other extreme cases as well, from foreign courts imposing hangings to American fights over method and timing. What the Florida record shows here is a planned ambush, a fire set on a wounded man, and a jury that nearly unanimously backed death.
Assistant State Attorney Brandon White prosecuted the case. He praised the death sentence and described the reaction inside the investigation when the video surfaced.
"I remember being in a room with the Indian River County Sheriff's detectives, probably with over 100 years of combined experience, and their jaws dropped when they saw this video because it was probably one of the most heinous things we've ever seen,"
White’s account matches the physical evidence the jury heard: the shots, the alcohol cans, the fire, and the deliberate steps Lenke took to hide the car’s tag and cover his hands and head. The state presented that sequence as proof of a calculated killing, not a sudden fight.
Policy arguments over when the death penalty should apply often surface after killings of police or other extreme violence, including calls to use capital punishment against those who murder officers. Lenke himself was a former officer. The court still treated the crime by the facts of the shop attack and the jury’s recommendation.
Judge Linn’s order did not hedge. He framed the sentence as fitting the first-degree murder conviction and the manner of Benson’s death. The jury’s 11-1 vote gave the court a clear signal. Florida law still routes the file to the state supreme court for review. That step is automatic. It does not erase the trial record or the video the detectives watched.
The core facts are not complicated. Lenke drove to Fort Pierce. He waited. He shot Benson three times. He poured denatured alcohol on a man who was still moving. He lit the fire. He had already stripped the tag and put on gloves and a helmet. Surveillance caught it. The gun turned up in the lagoon. Diggs put a name to the figure on the tape.
Death-row litigation can stretch for years, as seen in cases like failed lethal injection attempts that return inmates to prison while appeals continue. Lenke’s file now sits in that same system. The conviction stands. The 11-1 recommendation stands. The judge’s finding that the sentence is appropriate and just stands until the Florida Supreme Court finishes its review.
Other recent capital cases have tested execution methods themselves, including approval of a firing squad for a convicted mass killer. Florida’s path here is the ordinary one under state law: trial, jury recommendation, judicial sentence, then high-court review. Nothing in the shop video softens what the jury saw.
Benson was a mechanic running a motorcycle shop. Diggs was the woman both men knew. Lenke was the former cop who drove 40 minutes, waited 20 more, and finished the job with fire. The state asked for death. Eleven jurors agreed. The judge imposed it.
When a killer plans the ambush, shoots a wounded man, and sets him on fire on camera, a death sentence is not excess. It is the law answering cruelty with final judgment.