Correctional officer killed

Correctional officer killed

An inmate accused in the murder of a female correctional officer at Tomoka Correctional Institution has been charged with first-degree murder, authorities said this afternoon.

Correctional Officer Donna Fitzgerald was ambushed and killed at approximately 1930 hrs by an inmate.

She was the first correctional officer ever killed at Tomoka and is the second female correctional officer killed in state history. Fitzgerald has a 20 year old son.

"Words cannot express the sorrow I feel over the loss of our correctional officer," Department of Corrections Secretary Walter McNeil said in a department news release. "The entire department grieves the murder of one of our finest officers, and we pray for the victim’s family during this difficult time."

Please observe a moment of silence in memory of Correctional Officer Donna Fitzgerald.

According to the affidavit, Echon Hall stabbed Fitzgerald several times with piece of sheet metal formed into a knife. He got the sheet metal from an office inside the PRIDE work building. Fitzgerald was searching for Hall, who hid in a welding shed adjacent to the PRIDE building.

Fitzgerald opened the door to the welding shed and found Hall. When the officer attempted to take custody of Hall, the inmate stabbed her. He then concealed the weapon in a nearby concrete block wall. He later told officers where he hid the knife.

It was widely reported this morning that Fitzgerald was raped but there has been no official confirmation. Reports from the Sheriiff's Office and state investigators do not mention it and officials have refused to confirm or deny that a rape occurred.


Hall, 39, was sentenced to life in prison for a kidnapping in Escambia County in 1993. In that incident, he was also convicted of sexual battery and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, prison records show. In 1992, Hall was convicted of sexual battery in a separate case.

Fitzgerald, 50, had worked at Tomoka Correctional for the past 13 years. An internal investigation is under way, he said.

Hall was being held under "close" custody, the highest level at Tomoka Correctional. "Maximum" is the highest security level in Florida’s prisons.

Hall was sent to state prison for raping and beating multiple victims, including abducting a 66-year-old woman from a Pensacola apartment complex. The beating he inflicted on her resulted in partial hearing loss and the loss of her senses of taste and smell, according from news reports at the time.

Before that, Hall was sentenced to federal prison after pleading guilty to kidnapping a 23-year-old woman from a Pensacola parking lot Feb. 22, 1992, and taking her to Alabama.