Bio 

Jose Antonio Jimenez was born on October 12, 1963. By the early 1990s, Jimenez was living in South Florida. Court records later described him as a cocaine user and connected him to burglary-related crimes. His criminal history became significant after his arrest for the 1992 killing of Phyllis Minas, when authorities also linked him to an earlier homicide from 1990.

The earlier case involved a separate killing committed on October 19, 1990. After his arrest in the Minas case, Jimenez was later convicted of second-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, and burglary with assault for that earlier crime. He received prison terms of 17 years for second-degree murder, 17 years for robbery, and 15 years for burglary.

Jimenez became widely known because of the 1992 murder of Phyllis Minas, a 63-year-old woman who lived in North Miami. That case led to a first-degree murder conviction and a death sentence. His appeals continued for more than two decades before Florida carried out the sentence in 2018.

Murder Story

On October 2, 1992, Jose Antonio Jimenez entered the North Miami apartment of 63-year-old Phyllis Minas. Minas was a longtime employee of the Miami-Dade court clerk’s office. Prosecutors alleged that Jimenez was burglarizing the apartment when Minas returned home and encountered him.

During the attack, Minas’ neighbors heard her screaming from inside the apartment. They tried to enter through her front door, which was unlocked at first. As they attempted to get inside, the door was forced shut from inside the apartment and locked.

Jimenez then escaped through the bedroom area by going out onto the balcony. From there, he crossed to a neighboring balcony and jumped down to the ground. Witnesses later reported seeing him leaving the area.

When emergency workers arrived, Minas was still alive, but she had suffered severe injuries. She had been beaten and stabbed multiple times. She was taken for medical treatment but later died from her injuries.

After the attack, Jimenez cleaned himself up and changed clothes. He then approached neighbors in the hallway and asked one woman if he could use her phone to call a taxi. Investigators later found fingerprints on the inside of Minas’ front door that matched Jimenez.

Jimenez was arrested at his parents’ home in Miami, Florida, on October 5, 1992, three days after the attack. On October 21, 1992, he was indicted in Dade County for first-degree murder and burglary with assault.

His trial was held in 1994. On October 6, 1994, a jury found Jimenez guilty of first-degree murder and burglary with assault. During the penalty phase, the jury unanimously recommended a death sentence by a vote of 12 to 0. On December 14, 1994, Judge Leslie Rothenberg sentenced Jimenez to death for the murder of Phyllis Minas. He also received a consecutive life sentence for burglary with assault.

After his death sentence, Jimenez pursued years of appeals in state and federal court. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed his conviction and death sentence on October 30, 1997. The United States Supreme Court later denied review. Additional post-conviction motions and habeas petitions were also denied over the following years.

In 2018, Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a death warrant for Jimenez. His execution was first scheduled for August 14, 2018, but the Florida Supreme Court temporarily stayed it to review additional claims. The stay was later lifted, and the execution was reset for December 13, 2018.

Jose Antonio Jimenez was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on December 13, 2018. He was pronounced dead at 9:48 p.m. He was 55 years old. According to execution reports, he made no final statement.