27 May 2026 :
May 21, 2026 - Florida. Otto Lenke sentenced to death
St. Lucie County Jury recommends Otto Lenke be executed
It took a jury about 5 hours Thursday (May 21) to vote 11-1 to recommend Otto Lenke, 66, be put to death for the 2021 murder of Richard Benson
Judge Michael Linn, who will impose Lenke’s punishment during a future hearing, is required to give the jury’s recommendation great weight, but Florida law allows the court to overrule a vote for death and impose a life prison term instead.
Lenke served as a police officer from December 1980 to December 1995 before he “medically retired.” He joined the Indian River County Fire Department in 1999 and resigned as a firefighter paramedic in May 2016, after 16 years.
During his trial, state prosecutors repeatedly showed a graphic surveillance video that recorded Lenke firing the fatal shots and setting Benson’s body on fire while he was still alive.
Just after 9 a.m. on Feb. 17, 2021, Benson’s burned body was found inside his motorcycle repair shop by St. Lucie County Fire District crews who were responding to calls of a smoldering building on South Third Street just north of the main police station.
Benson, 57, had been shot 3 times, and his body had been saturated with an accelerant and set on fire.
Lenke was jailed 2 days after Benson’s death after investigators developed circumstantial evidence that tied him to the crime — including his movements tracked before and after the murder, his car photographed along the route from Sebastian to Fort Pierce and back, and the recovery of a .40-caliber Glock.
