WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A Florida death row inmate has pleaded guilty to a 1975 murder in Delray Beach.
The Palm Beach Post reports 72-year-old James Franklin Rose entered his plea by satellite television from Union Correctional Institute in Raiford during a hearing in West Palm Beach. He was sentenced to life in prison as part of a deal with prosecutors.
Authorities say Rose raped and fatally stabbed Jean Savage at her Delray Beach home in April 1975. Authorities had few leads for 40 years, but cold-case detectives processed the old evidence in 2015 and found a DNA match to Rose, who had previously been convicted of murdering an 8-year-old girl in 1975.
Rose admitted to killing Savage, telling detectives that her husband had paid him to execute her. Savage's husband, Edwin Savage, reportedly died four years after the murder.