Groveland Rape Defendant Dies. By HAROLD RUMMEL Of The Times Staff - Walter Lee Irvin, who 20 years ago survived two death sentences and the bullets of Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall, ventured back in mid-February for apparently the first time - and he died there. He was pronounced dead at Groveland in rural Lake County Feb. 16 and was quietly buried a week later, it was learned yesterday. He'd gone back for the funeral of an uncle, John Brown. Irwin, a Negro, was 41. HIS DEATH certificate on file at the Lake County Health Department doesn't list a cause of death, but a Leesburg physician who performed an autopsy said death came from a severe miocardial infarction, a heart attack. Dr. William Schutze said there was no indication of prior attacks but that he didn't consider the fatal seizure unusual for a man of Irvin's physical stature and age. He ruled out foul play. Schutze said Irvin had been out "juking" - making the rounds of rural nightspots - with a group of younger men until early Feb. 16, though his autopsy indicated little or no blood alcohol. He said Irvin stayed in a car to sleep when the others stopped for breakfast, and they later carried him to bed. He was pronounced dead after they were unable to awaken him about 2 p.m., Dr. Schutze said. Irvin, the sole survivor of three Negro men who were accused of raping a 17-year-old white divorcee in 1949, was paroled from the state prison at Raiford only a year ago. HE'D LIVED with an unblemished record in Miami, which parole officials had prescribed because of its distance from Lake County. Irvin's case attracted national attention for more than six years. In the immediate aftermath of his arrest in 1949, National Guardsmen had to be summoned to Groveland to quell rioting whites who were fire-bombing Negro shacks in the area. One of the men accused of rape with Irvin, Ernest Thomas, was hunted down by a posse a few days after the alleged crime and killed. Irvin and the third man, Samuel Shepherd, were sentenced to die. TWO YEARS later, McCall was returning them to Lake County from Raiford for a new trial at the behest of the U.S. Supreme Court when they were gunned down by the sheriff, who said they had attacked him when he stopped with a flat tire. Shepherd was dead, but Irvin clung precariously to life, and as he did he continued to insist that he knew nothing of the rape. He also claimed McCall shot him without provocation. A grand jury cleared the sheriff. Irvin's ensuing trial held to the north in Ocala because of the mood in Lake County brought a team of attorneys which included Thurgood Marshall, now a U.S. Supreme Court justice, then an attorney for the NAACP, to his defense. AS THE trial progressed, Irvin declined an offer from prosecuting attorneys to guarantee him a life sentence in exchange for a guilty plea still insisting innocence and again was sentenced to die. After four more years on death row, Gov. LeRoy Collins succeeded in getting the death sentence reduced to life imprisonment. Collins said the state failed to "walk that extra mile - did not establish the guilt of Walter Lee Irvin in an absolute and conclusive manner." Tavares attorney Jess Hunter, who had prosecuted the case, agreed. Irvin first applied for parole in 1960 and was denied because he'd served only 10 years of his life sentence. Parole was granted early last year. Tampa Bay Times, Mar 7, 1969. Transcription by Mary Cummins.

In 2016, the Lake County Commission followed Groveland Mayor Tim Loucks in presenting the surviving families of the Groveland Four with a posthumous apology. Both Loucks and members of the Lake County Commission then began lobbying state lawmakers to do the same. On Tuesday, April 18, 2017, the Florida House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution sponsored by State Representative Bobby DuBose apologizing to the families of the Groveland Four, some of whose members were in attendance, and exonerating the men. The Florida State Senate passed an identical resolution sponsored by Senator Gary Farmer on April 27, 2017. The resolutions also called on Governor Rick Scott to expedite the process for granting posthumous pardons. On January 11, 2019, the Florida Board of Executive Clemency, with newly seated Republican Governor Ron DeSantis at the helm, agreed unanimously to pardon the Groveland Four. "Seventy years is a long time," DeSantis said before taking office. "And that's the amount of time four young men have been wrongly written into Florida history for crimes they did not commit and punishments they did not deserve."
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