JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Tiffany Cole was 23 when she plotted with three male co-defendants to rob and kill an elderly couple. She was 26 when she was sentenced to death. Now 41, Cole is back in Jacksonville ahead of her scheduled resentencing next week.
Cole is one of four defendants in the 2005 case, in which Reggie and Carol Sumner were kidnapped from their Jacksonville home, bound with duct tape and driven to rural Georgia where they were buried alive.
Cole had been the couple’s neighbor at one time, and went to their house in July 2005 with friends Alan Wade, Bruce Nixon, and her boyfriend Michael Jackson on the pretext of using their phone.
Nixon cooperated with prosecutors and received a life sentence for the crime. Jackson, Wade, and Cole were all sentenced to death. However, their sentences were thrown out in 2017 after a new law was passed requiring unanimous jury verdicts in death cases.
The law changed back again this year. Florida juries can now sentence someone to death with a vote of just 8-4. So while Cole is being resentenced because of the 2017 rules, she will be resentenced under existing ones. Cole’s original jury was split 9-3.
Cole's codefendants were already resentenced. Alan Wade was given a life sentence last year; Michael Jackson was resentenced to death in May.
After Jackson’s resentencing, State Attorney Melissa Nelson said the ultimate punishment was warranted.
“This remains one of the most shocking and evil crimes our community has ever suffered — cold, calculated, premeditated, heinous, atrocious, cruel," she said. "Despite the passage of time, law enforcement and the prosecution, led by Alan Mizrahi, have remained steadfast in their commitment to this case and to the friends and family of Reggie and Carol Sumner."
Cole was booked back into the Duval County Jail Friday ahead of next week’s proceedings.
Jury selection begins Monday and could take two days.
*** The provided video was published on June 16, 2022***
