Florida high court rejects appeal in 1998 Seminole County triple murder

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal by a Death Row inmate convicted of killing two Seminole County residents and their 11-year-old daughter in 1998.

Justices unanimously turned down a motion by inmate Michael Gordon Reynolds for additional DNA testing.

Reynolds was convicted in the murders of Danny Privett, Robin Razor and their 11-year-old daughter, Christina Razor.

Reynolds was convicted in 2003 of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder and received death sentences in the murders of Robin and Christina Razor. Privett died of blows to the head, while Robin Razor was beaten and stabbed and Christina Razor was stabbed, according to court documents.

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Reynolds contended that another man committed the murders and challenged authorities’ DNA evidence, including in a 2013 motion that was denied.

In its ruling Thursday on the latest request for DNA testing, the Supreme Court pointed to a decision on the 2013 motion.

“In Reynolds’ 2013 motion, he requested, among other things, the testing of white panties, a concrete block, a switch plate, the victims’ clothing and hair found in one victim’s hand,” the ruling said. “The current motion also requested testing of those same items. Because we have already affirmed the denial of additional DNA testing on these pieces of evidence, Reynolds’s claims as to those items are now barred.”

Also, the ruling said that inconsistent with “Reynolds’s contention that DNA evidence will exonerate him — which is based on his premise that DNA evidence was the primary reason for his guilt — we have repeatedly found that Reynolds’s convictions do not depend solely on DNA evidence.”