BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Floyd Lee Coleman, Alabama’s oldest state prison inmate, died Wednesday at age 106, according to the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office.
Key Details:
- Coleman died at UAB Hospital at 6:09 p.m. after being transferred from William Donaldson Correctional Facility on May 19 due to medical complications.
- No trauma or foul play is suspected in his death.
Background:
- Coleman was serving a life sentence without parole for the 1978 rape and murder of 7-year-old Quintina Steele in Bessemer, Alabama.
- He was initially sentenced to death in 1979, but the Alabama Supreme Court ordered a new trial in 1981 after changes to the state’s death penalty law.
- In 1984, Coleman pleaded guilty and received a life sentence.
Crime Summary:
- Coleman, then 60 years old, lured Steele to his room in a boarding house where he beat, strangled, and sexually assaulted her.
- A judge at the time described his actions as “heinous, atrocious, and cruel.”
- Coleman denied the charges, claiming he had been heavily intoxicated.
Time Served:
- He spent more than 45 years behind bars, dying just months after surpassing a century in age.
His death closes one of the longest incarcerations in Alabama’s modern criminal history.
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