03 June 2026 :

June 2, 2026 - Florida. Andrew Lukehart, 53, White, was executed on June 2.

Andrew Lukehart was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. after receiving a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart. Lukehart was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in 1997 for the death a year earlier of 5-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw.

When the curtain of the execution chamber went up at 6 p.m., Lukehart was already strapped to a table with an IV in his arm. A priest sat at the foot of the table to pray over him as he died.

When a warden asked Lukehart if he had a final statement, he raised his head to look at a group in the front row of the viewing area and said, “I’m sorry.”

Lukehart then recited the Bible verse Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” which Scripture says Jesus Christ uttered during his crucifixion.

Lukehart lost consciousness almost immediately after the administration of the lethal drugs began. Several minutes into the execution, the warden shook Lukehart and shouted his name, but there was no reaction.

A medic was called in to check his vital signs, and he was declared dead several minutes later.

Lukehart declined a last meal and did not receive any visitors before the execution, though he did meet with a spiritual adviser, Department of Corrections spokesperson Jordan Kirkland said during a news conference.

According to court records, Lukehart was watching his girlfriend’s baby in February 1996 while his girlfriend was caring for her older daughter, who had been ill. At some point, the girlfriend said Lukehart drove away from their Jacksonville home, and she couldn’t find baby Gabrielle. Lukehart called his girlfriend about 30 minutes later and told her to call police because the baby had been kidnapped and he was chasing the kidnapper.

Later that evening, Lukehart was found in a neighboring county after driving his car off the road. During questioning the next day, Lukehart told investigators that Gabrielle died after he dropped the baby on her head and then shook her. He told police that he panicked and threw the baby in a pond. Law enforcement officers searched the pond and found the child’s body.

The Florida Supreme Court denied Lukehart’s appeals last week. His attorneys had claimed that medication he was taking for kidney disease could have a negative reaction with the lethal injection drugs. They also argued that having only a month between the signing of Lukehart’s death warrant and the execution deprived him of his due process.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Lukehart’s final appeal Monday.

Lukehart becomes the 8th person to be put to death this year in Florida and the 133rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1979, the 15th person to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,669th overall since US resumed executions in 1977.