Oba Chandler Turns a Florida Visit into a Triple Homicide
(‘Water Logged,’ Forensic Files)
If anyone deserved a vacation, it was Joan Rogers. She worked full-time on her family dairy farm in Ohio, then drove across state lines to Indiana for a factory job. In fact, her life had been pretty much nonstop labor since she got married and had a baby as a teenager.
“Water Logged,” which tells the story of the murder that befell her and her daughters while on holiday in Florida, was voted as having the second-best crime reenactment of all 400 episodes of Forensic Files. The story also stands out as a reminder of what can lurk beneath a pleasant exterior — in this case, that of Oba Chandler, who many women found charming until his true self bubbled up to the surface.
For this post, I looked around for information that might reveal the origins of Oba’s depravity and also for the story of his bitter end. The Florida Department of Corrections lists him as deceased but doesn’t say whether he died of natural causes or was helped along by the state. I also searched for more details about the Rogers family. The random collision of their integrity with the killer’s dissolute lifestyle reminded me of the book In Cold Blood, the birthplace of true-crime storytelling.
Sadistic thrill. So let’s get going on the recap of “Water Logged” along with information from internet research:
On June 4, 1989, pleasure boaters began reporting bodies floating in different areas of Tampa Bay. The Coast Guard ultimately recovered three half-naked females. A killer had taped their mouths, bound their wrists and ankles, and tied them to concrete bricks with yellow ropes.
The authorities believed the victims had been raped, although three days in the sea had washed away any forensic evidence.
“I think he left their eyes uncovered because he wanted each one to see what was happening to the other one,” said lead investigator Glen Moore during his Forensic Files interview. “I think he wanted to see the fear in their eyes.”
Too few pounds. The presence of water in their lungs meant they were alive when thrown into the bay. “This was not just a murder,” narrator Peter Thomas said. “It was an execution.”
Nonetheless, according to the Bradenton Herald, the police felt that an amateur (or anyone who didn’t watch enough mafia entertainment) committed the homicides because a professional would have used heavier weights to ensure the bodies didn’t surface.
Authorities named the victims Jane Doe 1, 2, and 3.
Hotel hint. Psychics offered to help the police identify the victims, and hundreds of concerned citizens called in with tips. The St. Petersburg police offered a $5,000 reward for information that would help solve the case.
Fortunately, police got a break on June 8, when an employee at the Days Inn on Rocky Point Island reported that a woman named Joan Rogers and her two daughters had checked in on June 1 and hadn’t been seen for days since then. Their makeup, stuffed animals, bathing suits, etc. were still in the room at the Tampa hotel.
Police got in touch with Joan’s husband, Hal Rogers, who had stayed behind to tend to the couple’s 200-acre farm in Willshire, Ohio. Hal gave them access to dental records that positively identified the victims as Joan, Michelle, and Christe Rogers.
Fast start to adulthood. The three, who normally worked on the farm alongside Hal — the daughters milked 80 Holstein cows every day at 5:30 a.m. — had gone for a weeklong vacation.
As noted, Joan really needed a break.
Born on November 12, 1952 in Van Wert, Ohio, Joan Mae Etzler, known as Jo, was outgoing and friendly. In high school, she began dating her classmate Hal Rogers and became pregnant senior year, a situation that mortified her parents. The couple quickly married and had Michelle, who looked like her mother. A few years later, they welcomed Christe, who inherited her father’s cute puppy-dog features.
Spring break. Hal acknowledged that as hard as he worked, his wife worked harder. She drove a forklift and manned the assembly line at her second job, at Peyton’s Northern product distribution center, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Joan and Hal “always looked happy but tired,” Susan Reynolds, a waitress at the Village Restaurant, where the couple often ate, told the Bradenton Herald. “You could see that the hard work took its toll on them.”
Michelle and Christe had never experienced leisure travel, so the thought of going 3,000 miles away to the Sunshine State must have been magical even before they laid eyes on Cinderella’s Castle.
Final correspondence. On May 26, Joan loaded the girls into her blue Oldsmobile Calais and gave Hal — who was unloading corn gluten feed—a kiss goodbye before heading south on Interstate 75 with plans to visit a number of spots, according to Angels & Demons, Thomas French’s seven-part Tampa Bay Times series, which won a Pulitzer Price in 1998.
After spending the night in Georgia en route to Florida, Joan and the girls traveled to the Jacksonville Zoo, then went to Disney World and Epcot Center. A post card Joan sent to Hal said that they had ridden in a glass-bottomed boat.
On June 1, Joan and the girls drove to Tampa and checked into the Days Inn at Rocky Point.
On the blocks. Police got a lucky forensic break after locating Joan’s abandoned 1986 Oldsmobile at a boat launch. Inside, they found a brochure with some handwritten directions to either a boat launch or to the Days Inn (accounts vary).
A handwriting analyst determined that a note in the car was written by someone other than the victims.
Another note, in Joan’s writing, mentioned something blue and white, probably the colors of a boat.
Police did an aerial search to look for the source of the concrete blocks that the killer used.
Nightmare cruise. A tipster told police about an ex-con named Jason Wilcox who owned a blue and white boat and ran sunset cruises without a license. Jason had been in jail for aggravated assault, and police saw concrete blocks on his property.
Separately, they found out that on May 15, 1989, a boater in Madeira Beach offered a ride to a Canadian tourist and threatened to kill her if she wouldn’t have sex with him. He told her that sharks would get her if she jumped into the water. After the rape, he let her go.
But the Canadian woman, a 24-year-old social worker, said her attacker didn’t resemble Wilcox’s photo.
Monetary incentive. Forensic Files didn’t mention it, but there was another false yet disturbing lead. According to Oxygen True Crime, Hal told police that his younger brother — a partner in the dairy farm — had sexually abused Michelle. But John Rogers, 31, was already locked up for another sex crime when the murders happened. (Hal and Joan Rogers never pressed charges against John because Michelle didn’t want to testify.)
Meanwhile, the community of Willshire and the surrounding counties reeled from the news about the murder of three of its own. “This grief is forever, a scar no one can remove,” said Rev. Gary Luderman of the Zion Lutheran Church, where the Rogers belonged.
A wholesaler who did business with Hal’s farm announced plans to fund a new reward for information on the killer.
On autopilot. But that didn’t mean Hal had everyone’s moral support. He hadn’t reported his wife and kids missing until three days after they were due at home. Investigator Stephen Porter said that the widower seemed cold and unemotional about the tragic events.
His reaction spurred some Ohio locals to suspect he was involved in the murders. Hal would later explain that he did what he had to do to function and keep the farm operational after the murders, and he felt like a third person viewing the devastation.
Hal had a huge pile of alibis because he ate his meals at local restaurants every day while his family was in Florida, and tons of people saw him.
Dedicated sleuths. But rumors persisted. He had recently withdrawn $7,000 in cash from the bank, perhaps for hired guns?
“There was controversy swirling around that maybe I did this,” Hal said without rancor during an interview on the TV series The Investigators. “The people who [still] aren’t sure are scared to death because something like that could happen to them.”
Meanwhile, the St. Petersburg detectives assigned to the murder case “were working day and night, working weekends, putting off vacations, losing weight, gaining weight, growing pale and pasty and haggard, waking at 3 a.m. with a jolt and scratching notes on pads kept beside their beds,” Thomas French wrote.
Still, none of the tips led anywhere, and the case went cold about a year after the murders.
Water Hazard. The investigation picked up steam in 1992 when authorities displayed billboards with the unidentified handwriting from Joan’s car.
A woman named Jo Ann Steffey recognized a police sketch of the killer as belonging to a redheaded contractor named Oba Chandler. She noticed that receipts from Chandler matched that of the handwriting on the billboards.
Oba Chandler was a construction company owner with a criminal record dating back to his teens; it included two sexual assaults. Steffey described him as creepy and not being able to make eye contact with her.
Palm in hand. In photo and in-person lineups, the Canadian rape victim picked him out as the charismatic boat owner who turned into a savage once they left shore.
Law officers arrested Oba, then age 45, on September 24, 1992 for the sexual assault.
In the meantime, they were building a case against him for the triple homicide. Oba’s palm print matched one found on the brochure from Joan’s vehicle.
Family tragedy. So who was this man of contradictions with a personality ranging from warm and friendly to antisocial and sadistic — and a record as a career criminal and a home-improvement entrepreneur?
Oba Chandler was born on October 11, 1946 to a poor family in Cincinnati. His mother, Margaret, was housewife. His father, also named Oba Chandler, was a laborer for National Distillers and Chemical Co., according to the Tampa Bay Times. Oba Sr. was a strict disciplinarian.
In 1957, at age 10, Oba Jr. found his father hanging from a rope over a ceiling joist in the family’s home. He had committed suicide.
Corporal punishment. At the funeral, Oba Jr. threw himself upon his father’s open grave. Sources vary as to whether he was acting out of grief or anger, but either way, it marked the beginning of the fair-haired blue-eyed boy’s deviant future, according to The Investigators. He moved around a lot, bunking with various relatives including his mother and her new husband.
Oba started stealing cars and later admitted that he spent much of his life running from police. His sister Lula spent some time in a reform school, so maybe it ran in the family.
“Where I was raised up as a kid, the majority of the time you weren’t arrested,” Oba told The Investigators. “When you were caught doing something…you got beaten with the cop’s nightstick.”
At some point, he joined the Marines but stayed only a year. He used drugs and drifted from job to job.
Cooking up dough. Meanwhile, as a criminal, Oba was growing into a jack-of-all-trades. His offenses included tampering with a coin machine, hustling at pool, and robbing drug dealers. He once broke into a private home, tied up the couple who lived there, and stole their guns and Doberman pinscher.
Oba needed new identities to throw the police and his creditors off track. The Florida Department of Corrections would ultimately list 14 aliases for Oba Chandler, including Ron Howard, Oba Pinson, and Jimmy Wright.
Nonetheless, in the early 1980s, Oba caught the attention of the U.S. Secret Service — and ultimately served time in a Texas prison — for attempting to counterfeit money in his backyard.
Promising in appearance. In addition to his growing rap sheet, Oba acquired numerous romantic liaisons. While still in his teens, Oba had two daughters by a girlfriend and then a son by a different woman.
His charisma won him anywhere from five to eight marriages, but he had a penchant for violence and none of his relationships lasted. Of the half dozen or so children he accrued, only some became close to him.
At times, Oba moved back in with his mother.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, one of his marriages, to Debra Whiteman, represented a relatively stable period in his life. Using $10,000 of her money for the downpayment, the couple bought a house on 10790 Dalton Ave. in Tampa.
Naturally alluring. He was still living at that house when he randomly met Joan Rogers at a gas station. She asked for directions, and he jotted them down for her. He then invited her and the girls on a sunset cruise, and she wrote down directions to a boat launch where they would meet, investigators believe.
“The sun sparkles along the green water of the bay while warm breezes entice divers and boaters,” the Bradenton Herald wrote of the beautiful scene that Joan, Michelle, and Christe Rogers witnessed on the Courtney Campbell Causeway on the last day of their lives
It’s not clear whether Oba knew this, but the Rogers trio had very little experience in the water and Joan reportedly couldn’t swim at all. Once Oba stopped being personable and started tying them up and terrorizing them, they had no way to escape.
Frightening admission. On the night of the murders, Oba had called Debra from the radio on the boat to say he had engine trouble and would be home late.
Around the time police released a composite drawing of the then-anonymous killer, he showed up at the home of his daughter Kristal Mays. He allegedly confessed to Kristal’s husband that he committed rape. The son-in-law told authorities.
Oba sold his boat.
Another of Oba’s kids, Jeffrey Chandler, defended his father against the rape accusations. Other relatives would go on to accept money for TV interviews, according to the St. Petersburg Times.
Help from up north. At the trial in September 1994, Oba testified that he wrote the directions on the brochure in Joan Rogers’ car but he never saw the trio again. He said he went fishing alone in Tampa Bay but a gas leak emptied his fuel tank and left him stranded.
But the Canadian victim sunk his defense. She testified about how Oba, who introduced himself as Dave Posno and claimed he was a nurse, charmed her into his boat. She said that the interior of the boat — which authorities had retrieved from its new owner — matched that of the crime scene.
At the very beginning of deliberations, the forewoman decided to assess where everyone stood. She asked each juror to write down guilty or innocent.
All 12 said guilty.
Negative superlative. Nonetheless, they pored over the evidence for 90 minutes before officially convicting Oba on three counts of murder.
Chief Judge Susan Schaeffer — known as a capital punishment enthusiast (House Calls) — said that Oba had forfeited his right to live. She gave him the death penalty, which at that time meant the electric chair.
Schaeffer later said that Oba was probably the most vile and evil defendant she’d ever encountered, which says a lot considering all the horrible crimes (Payback, Cold Feet, Muffled Cries) that go down in the Sunshine State.
No friends or family ever visited Oba in prison, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Last meal. As of 1995, Oba, then 48, was cocky about his outlook. “I have no fear of it,” he said, according to the St. Petersburg Times. “If they kill me, they’re going to be killing an old man.”
All his appeal attempts failed.
On November 15, 2011, Oba ate two salami sandwiches and half a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich and drank coffee before meeting justice. He wrote a note denying his guilt.
Husband watches. By this time, Florida had retired Old Sparky, and was using lethal injection. The Tampa Bay Times reported:
“Chandler’s eyes were closed when the brown curtain to the death chamber rose. He was strapped onto a gurney, intravenous tubes leading into his arms. His eyes opened when he was asked if he had anything to say. ‘No,’ Chandler said. Then, at the age of 65, he closed his eyes for good.”
Hal Rogers witnessed the execution.
In an interview with The Investigators, Hal lauded his friends for letting him crash at their places when he couldn’t bear being alone.
Begin again. He also said that after the murders, there were some years about which he hardly remembers anything.
Tired of being alone, he took out a personal ad circa 2009 and met and married a widow named Jolene. He told the Tampa Bay Times that he still misses Joan, Michelle and Christe.
“That makes it rough on Jolene. How do you fight a dead person?” Hal said. “But her first husband died too. She understands.”
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR
Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube
