Darla Kay Lathrem, a 38-year-old female corrections officer, was known for her fearlessness and her belief in the justice system. Her colleagues at the Charlotte Correctional Institution in Punta Gorda, Florida, remembered her as a light in a dark world. She had served with the Florida Department of Corrections for one year and was survived by her parents, who remembered her as a great aunt to her nieces and nephews.
Her life of dedicated service was cut short in an act of brutal violence that would mark a tragic first for the state.
On the night of June 11, 2003, Officer Lathrem was supervising a five-inmate work crew on a construction detail inside the maximum-security prison. The inmates were part of a renovation project in one of the dormitories and had access to tools. Unbeknownst to her, three of the inmates—Dwight Thomas Eaglin, Stephen Smith, and Michael Jones—had been planning an escape. Eaglin, a former professional boxer known as "The Fighting Irishman," was already serving a life sentence for a 1998 murder. The inmates lured Officer Lathrem to a mop closet under a pretext, where they ambushed her.
The attack was swift and violent. The inmates bludgeoned Lathrem with a five-pound sledgehammer, killing her. They also turned on two other inmates who were part of the work crew and had refused to participate in the escape plan. One of those inmates, 36-year-old Charles Fuston, was beaten so severely that he died from his injuries two days later, on June 13, 2003. Fuston’s family and a prison minister later remembered him as a hero who died trying to protect Officer Lathrem. His sister, Rosie Fuston, recalled the prison warden telling her, "Your brother was a victim in this and was trying to help one of ours."
The escape attempt failed. Around 9:30 p.m., an alarm was triggered on the perimeter fence, and responding officers found Eaglin attempting to climb it. He and the other two would-be escapees were quickly captured on the prison grounds. Investigators soon made a grim discovery inside. They found Officer Lathrem’s body in the mop closet, her radio and keys discarded in a toilet. Fuston was found unconscious in a cell, bleeding from his head. The sledgehammer used in the attack was found near Lathrem's body. Darla Lathrem became the first female corrections officer to be killed in the line of duty in Florida's history.
The subsequent investigation revealed that prison policies had not been followed, as Officer Lathrem, armed only with pepper spray, had been supervising the inmates with access to tools alone and after dark. The crime was orchestrated by Dwight Thomas Eaglin, a serial killer convicted of a total of three murders. He and Stephen Smith were charged with two counts of first-degree murder. The third conspirator, Michael Jones, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. In February 2006, a jury found Eaglin guilty of the murders of both Darla Lathrem and Charles Fuston. He was formally sentenced to death on March 31, 2006. Stephen Smith was also convicted and sentenced to death, while Michael Jones received a life sentence for his role.
Years of legal appeals followed. Due to changes in Florida's death penalty laws, Eaglin was granted a new penalty-phase trial, which took place in early 2026. The new jury again recommended the death penalty. The jury's vote was 11-1 for the murder of Officer Lathrem and a unanimous 12-0 for the murder of Charles Fuston. Following the verdict, Darla’s sister, Janet Best, released a statement: “Our family is grateful that jurors made the appropriate recommendation. And we look forward to the Judge imposing that recommendation, so that justice will finally be served. We miss Darla very much.”
State Attorney Amira Fox affirmed her office's commitment, stating, "This was a heinous crime and clearly a death penalty case. We will never stop in our quest for justice for victims." On June 19, 2026, Dwight Eaglin was formally resentenced to death. At a memorial service years after her death, Darla’s father, David Lathrem, recalled the 2 a.m. knock on the door that brought the tragic news. "In some sense," he said, "it feels like it might have been just yesterday."
