Bio 

Darius Mark Kimbrough was born on December 4, 1972. Kimbrough was 18 years old at the time of the October 1991 attack. Collins, the victim, lived in the same apartment complex. Two weeks before the murder, she had reportedly complained to apartment management that a man was following her, making lewd comments, and threatening to hurt her if she contacted police. Later reporting identified Kimbrough as the man believed to have been harassing her.

Before his conviction in the Collins case, Kimbrough was arrested in March 1992 for another sexual assault in the Conway neighborhood of Orange County. In that case, a 22-year-old woman was attacked after an intruder broke into her bedroom. DNA evidence from that later assault connected Kimbrough to the attack on Collins. He was sentenced to 10 and a half years for burglary and sexual battery in the March 1992 case.

Murder Story

On October 3, 1991, Denise Collins was attacked inside her second-floor apartment at the Carousel Club Apartments on Rio Grande Avenue south of Orlando. She was 28 years old and had recently moved into the complex. Collins was an aspiring graphic artist and fashion designer who was working at a Kinko’s copy center at the time of her death.

Evidence showed that the attacker climbed a ladder to Collins’s second-floor balcony and entered through a sliding-glass door. Paramedics later found Collins nude, semiconscious, and covered in blood in her bathroom. The sliding-glass door was partially open, and ladder impressions were found on the ground below the balcony.

Collins was taken to a hospital, but she died after life support was removed. The medical examiner testified that her cause of death was hemorrhaging and brain injury caused by blunt trauma to the face. She suffered a broken jaw and skull injuries, along with evidence of sexual assault.

The case remained unsolved until Kimbrough was arrested in March 1992 for another rape in Orange County. DNA from that attack connected him to the Collins case. Investigators also had witness evidence. One apartment resident said he saw a man near Collins’s apartment and saw a ladder leaning against her balcony. A maintenance worker also identified Kimbrough as the man who had watched him put away a ladder around the time of the murder.

At trial, DNA evidence showed that semen recovered from Collins’s bedsheets matched Kimbrough. Some pubic hairs found in the bed and on a towel also matched him, and blood evidence from the bed was linked to him. The Florida Supreme Court later ruled that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the DNA evidence.

On July 1, 1994, a jury convicted Kimbrough of first-degree murder, burglary, and sexual battery. On November 9, 1994, the jury recommended death by an 11–1 vote. On December 9, 1994, Judge Dorothy J. Russell sentenced him to death for the murder and to life imprisonment for both burglary and sexual battery.

Kimbrough appealed, arguing issues related to DNA evidence, mitigation, proportionality, and the exclusion of testimony about Collins’s former boyfriend. On August 21, 1997, the Florida Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and death sentence. The court found that the death sentence was not disproportionate and that the evidence supported the finding that the murder was committed during a sexual battery.

Kimbrough continued to pursue state and federal appeals for years. In 2013, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a death warrant setting his execution date. His final appeals were rejected, and he was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on November 12, 2013. He was 40 years old. Reuters reported that he was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m.