Convicted murderer released from prison last year charged with killing missing mom in Florida

Police have charged a convicted murderer who was released from prison last year with the slaying of a South Florida woman whose body was found in a canal after being missing for three weeks.

Eric Pierson, 54, was charged Saturday with first-degree murder for the slaying of Erika Verdecia, 33, hours after her body was found Saturday near Fort Lauderdale. Sunrise police say Pierson confessed to stabbing the single mother four times with a screwdriver on Sept. 25.

Pierson had been released from prison in September 2020 after serving 27 years of a 40-year sentence for the 1993 beating and strangulation murder of 17-year-old Kristina Whitaker, whose death helped galvanize a push for longer prison sentences. He had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.