George W. Kingston III

To Dad;

My father was wrongfully convicted of a double homicide almost 18 year ago. I was 18 when it all happened. The couple that was murdered was friends and clients of my father's.

My father was an insurance agent and owned his own business. My mother, a housewife and me and 2 brothers lived a normal, peaceful life. We live in an upper-middle class neighborhood. I can remember living in a big house, shopping with my mother and boating on weekends with my family. We took family vacations to various places.

Then on day In June It all came down around me. It was in the evening time and I was with a friend in the movie theater. I can remember the movie like it was yesterday. It was the movie red October. The movie was halfway over and something didn’t feel right. My stomach began to ache and I felt very ill. I told my friend something was wrong at home and we needed to go. My mother and I are very close. When something is wrong with her, I always feel it. When I got home, my house was full of my mom's friends but my parents weren't there. I thought it was weird since their cars were out front and my mother's purse was on the counter. No one would tell me what was going on. They all said the same thing "wait until your mom gets home. You need to hear It from her." that's not what I wanted to hear, but okay I was 18 so I accepted It. I sat on the coach and turned on the TV. Biggest mistake of my life. The TV shows I was watching broke through with one of those "breaking news stories" and I saw my father in handcuffs being led Into the Sarasota county jail. Then the reporters said "George W. Kingston III, an insurance agent has been charge with the double homicide of Mr. & Mrs. Stutsman" I couldn't believe what I was seeing or hearing. I wasn't processing it at all. That was my father I saw on the TV. Murder??? My father?? Never. This was the gentlest man in the world. We never got spankings growing up, he never yelled at us or anything. So how could this be happening? I knew it had to be a mistake. Then my mom's friends said they took my mother down for questioning and she would be home soon. I knew then my life as I knew it would never be the same and it hasn't.

I’m now 36 and still fighting for my father's release. When my father went to trial, it was like a three ring circus. They allowed things that should have never happened. It was along time ago so I can only remember so much. I remember sitting in the courtroom with my older brother one day when a man took the witness stand. He was identified as a federal court judge that was in the witness protection program. Apparently he had put away some mobsters and had had some death threats. Well it turns out that this man believed that the murders were intended for him and whoever committed the crime murdered the wrong people and entered the wrong house. He put his life on the line to testify for my father. It turns out his house was directly behind the Stuntsman’s house and was the same layout and everything.

The state attorney, Henry Lee, tried to say that the murders were for financial gain. Well that doesn't make sense for my father. Yes my father was their insurance agent, but not the beneficiary on their policies. Their son was. So the only financial gain through their deaths was their son, who was never investigated.

My father was and still is the only suspect in the case. Mr. Stutsman was a retired doctor and a good one from what I understand. His son stood to gain approx. 14 million dollars In the event of his death.

When the Investigation started, they found the bodies after 6 weeks. The Stuntsman’s had 2 dogs. Someone had been coming into the house and feeding the dogs and letting them out for 6 weeks until the bodies were found police said. After talking to neighbors. They said they had seen almost daily a little red sports car in the driveway. My father nor did anyone in my family own a car like that. My father owned a large grey Lincoln Towncar. Not something you would miss easily, I would think. When the bodies were discovered, the son was asked if anything was missing in the house. According to police reports, it took him less than 5 minutes to tell police that nothing was missing except for the insurance file in the file cabinet for their insurance agent, George W. Kingston III. Now to me that just sounds fishy. I know my parents kept a file cabinet and I’m sure it had legal documents In It. But If I was questioned as to what was in the file cabinet or what was missing if any, I would have no clue. The police didn’t think this was odd. All of this was brought up during my father's trial and ignored by the judge.

During the time of the murders my father did own a Rossi 357 handgun. At that time, that was a common gun to own. when my father's gun was put Into evidence as the murder weapon, his lawyers objected and said "It never had a ballistics test done on It so how could the state know It was the murder weapon?" the asked Henry Lee why the gun wasn't tested and his response was "We know It the murder weapon sir, so we didn’t need to test it."   The judge then allowed the gun Into evidence as the murder weapon. My brother and I were in shock. We couldn't understand how something like this could happen. We knew it was an election year, but this was definitely taking it too far. Things like this continued to happen in my father's trial.

In the Stuntsman’s home on the sliding glass window exiting the house there were 2 bloody fingerprints recovered. Neither prints matched the Stuntsman’s or my father. There were 2 different blood types, neither of which matched my father or the Stuntsman’s. This would lead you to believe that there were two people who injured themselves in the assault and exited thru the rear of the house. Neither of which was my father. Again, all this was brought before the judge and ignored.

To this day the son still has never been questioned about his parent’s murders or his Involvement In them but has all their money. The money my family had is gone. The house we had and the things we had are gone. Everything had to go towards my father's defense. Still today my brothers, mother and I spend everything we have financially to try and release my father. We know he is innocent of these crimes and so do many other people.

My father was given over 100 years in prison with no parole. He was spared the death penalty.  The jury stated it was because of my statements. I am very close to my father and we were a very close family. My father was taken from me when I needed him the most in my life. My father has missed out on his golden years with my mother, the birth of all of his grandchildren, and the marriages of all of his children.

I did believe in the justice system until this happened to our family. Now I believe that there is no justice system and many people sit in prison falsely accused of crimes they didn’t commit and many sit on death row. The only good that has come from this is that the judge was fired soon after my father was sent to prison. The state attorney, Henry Lee, was forced to resign and many of the detectives that worked on the case were either fired or demoted. I think that should tell you something about my father's case. But even with all that, he couldn't get a new trial. He was gone thru every appeal and It has been rubberier stamped without even being opened. His attorney’s say this is because the state of Florida has to have new evidence to retry him. They can't retry him with the old evidence and they have no new evidence so they don't want to touch him because they know with the outcome brings many lawsuits to the state for injustice and they don't want to deal with It.

My father will be 70 this year and I think the state of Florida Is hoping he dies before he manages to get released, but that Isn't going to happen. My father's final appeal is on its way to Washington D.C. where we are hoping they overturn his verdict or release him. Either way.....my father was wrongfully accused.

Thanks you for hearing my story.

Kimberly LukancIch

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