State attorney's office not seeking death penalty against Duxbury in homicide case

ORLANDO, Fla. – The state attorney's office will not pursue the death penalty for the security guard accused of killing an Orlando woman at her Uptown Place apartment.

Police said while working as a security guard, Stephen Duxbury followed Sasha Samsudean, 27, into her apartment, raped and killed Oct. 17. Police said he strangled her, then rolled her body in her comforter and covered it in bleach.

Duxbury, 33, is charged with first-degree murder, sexual battery and burglary.

Duxbury's next pretrial hearing is scheduled for October.

"No family can ever take solace in the fact that the murderer of their young child will be walking the earth when their child's life was taken away at such a young age but because of the unsteady legal ground of the death penalty in Florida the family understands why the State's Attorney has not chosen to seek the death penalty for someone that would ordinarily deserve such a penalty," the attorney for the Samsudean family said in a statement to News 6.