BARTOW - George Wallace Brown, who was on death row for 16 years for murdering a Lakeland man, died of natural causes in prison on Sunday.

Brown was pronounced dead at 1:45 a.m., at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida, according to Jo Ellyn Rackleff, a spokesperson for the Florida Department of Corrections.

Rackleff said that an autopsy will be done to confirm the cause of death.

Brown was sentenced to death on May 3, 1991 by Polk County Circuit Judge J. Tim Strickland.

The average length of time on death row in Florida is 12.8 years, according to Rackleff.

Brown was sentenced for fatally stabbing a 62-year-old Lakeland man, Horace Brown (no relation). Brown told investigators he met the victim at a Lakeland bar and asked him for a ride to Polk City.

He claimed at trial that Horace Brown told him that he needed to meet someone at Interstate 4 and State Road 33, and that he dropped the victim off there and took the car to Polk City.

Brown said he later returned and found the victim's body.

Brown was arrested near Denver a week later on an unrelated Florida warrant for stealing a car in Osceola County.

Police found Horace Brown's credit cards among his belongings. George Brown told police about the death and said that he was "kind of involved." He then told them where to find Brown's body.

A medical examiner at the time testified that the victim slowly bled to death from three stab wounds.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said that early in the 20th century, the average time between sentencing and execution nationwide was about a year.

Now, the average time nationwide is 10.4 years.

"It's often a death sentence followed by a life sentence," he said.

The Death Penalty Information Center is a Washington D.C.-based non-profit institute that does not take a stand for or against the death penalty, but studies issues involved in capital punishment, such as mental illness and the cost of the death penalty.

Polk County Circuit Judge Bob Doyel, a former defense attorney who represented Brown at trial, could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.

Dana Willhoit can be reached at dana.willhoit@theledger.com or 863-533-9079.