At a hearing in Collier County Circuit Court on Thursday, Judge Franklin Baker sentenced Daniel Lee Lowe to life in prison on a charge of first-degree burglary while armed. In the same courtoom May 17 a jury found Lowe guilty of the charge as well as one count of grand theft and two counts of grand theft with a firearm.
Judge Baker adjudicated Lowe guilty and sentenced him as a prison release reoffender. The judge also ordered Lowe to serve five years in prison on each of his grand theft charges. Due to the prison release reoffender designation, Lowe’s sentence of life is mandatory, with no hope of parole or early release.
Lowe, a transient from East Naples, still has two robbery cases pending in Collier County Circuit Court. He has been charged with the Nov. 25, 2009, armed robbery at Walgreens, 1565 Airport-Pulling Road S., East Naples, and with the Nov. 26, 2009, armed robbery at Hess Mart, 11655 Collier Blvd., East Naples.
Lowe was convicted of breaking into a residence in the 5000 block of Cypress Lane on Nov. 3, 2009. He made off with two handguns, jewelry and cash.
The victims had gone out for the evening and when they returned home about 9:15 p.m. they discovered the burglary. Someone had gained entry into their locked home by breaking out the kitchen window. Collier County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded.
A man’s T-shirt that didn’t belong to the victims was discovered inside the master bedroom, where the guns, cash and jewelry had been taken from. Blood was discovered on the broken window glass in the kitchen. The shirt and blood evidence were sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s crime lab for testing.
At the lab, DNA from the T-shirt and blood were matched to the DNA of Lowe.
Lowe was arrested June 15, 2010, at the Collier County jail, where he was being held on the two pending robbery charges. Lowe has been in CCSO custody at the jail since Dec. 3, 2009.
Lowe is a documented career criminal with the Sheriff’s Office. He has spent the majority of his adult life in Florida prisons. All of his prior felony convictions are in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Between 1981, when he was first sentenced to prison, until 2008, when he was last released from prison, he has been convicted of 10 burglaries, three grand thefts and one conviction each for grand theft of a motor vehicle, armed robbery, aggravated battery, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, resisting arrest with violence, and possession of cocaine.
