Florida executes Andrew Lukehart over 5-month-old murder

Florida executes – Andrew Richard Lukehart was executed by lethal injection Tuesday, June 2, for the 1996 murder of 5-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw—an attack that prosecutors say happened while he was on probation for severely beating an 8-month-old girl. The case has become anoth

By the time Andrew Richard Lukehart began speaking at his own execution, the moment had narrowed to seconds and ritual.

Lukehart, 53, was executed by lethal injection Tuesday, June 2, for the 1996 murder of 5-month-old Garbrielle Hanshaw. He was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. ET.

“I’m sorry,” Lukehart told witnesses to the execution, according to the Associated Press. He then recited a Bible verse quoting Jesus as saying during his crucifixion: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

The final account comes after years of legal fights, and after a case that prosecutors portrayed as a repeated pattern of violence involving infants—violence that occurred while Lukehart was already under court supervision.

Lukehart’s case added to a heavy national stretch of executions. He became the 15th inmate put to death in the U.S. this year and the eighth in Florida—far more than any other state—as Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to sign a record number of death warrants in the Sunshine State.

Lukehart was convicted for what happened on Feb. 26, 1996, when he was 22. He was changing 5-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw’s diaper when he apparently lost his temper and hit her in the head five times, fracturing her skull.

After the attack, court records show that Lukehart dumped Gabrielle’s body in a local pond and concocted a story meant to trick police. He told investigators that someone had kidnapped Gabrielle from his car after he had parked it in front of a convenience store.

In that account. Lukehart said he saw the “kidnapper” flee in a blue Bazer and that he chased them down before he got into a car accident. Police later grew suspicious when his story kept changing. A widespread search for Gabrielle followed—50 officers. police dogs. a helicopter and a dive team—before investigators say Lukehart led them to Gabrielle’s body.

During his trial, Lukehart later admitted to hitting the baby but testified that he loved Gabrielle and never intended to kill her. “If only she hadn’t (dirtied her diaper),” he said at trial, according to archived news reports.

The case also hinges on what came before. Two years earlier, Lukehart pleaded guilty to beating a former girlfriend’s daughter—an 8-month-old girl named Jillian. In that earlier case. he initially told police that the girl had been drowning in the bath tub before he revived her. and that her head got hurt when he fell while holding her. according to an archived story in the Times-Union.

Jillian’s grandmother told the newspaper in 1996 that she was angry about the 10-month sentence Lukehart received. She said she feared another child would be in danger and that she was “just waiting to hear about something else.”

E. McRae Mathis. chief assistant state attorney at the time. told the newspaper that prosecutors in Jillian’s case allowed Lukehart to get a lighter sentence under a plea agreement for multiple reasons. Mathis said Lukehart had no criminal history. prosecutors didn’t believe Lukehart caused all the girl’s injuries because the mother was charged with neglect. and because overcrowding in Florida’s prisons meant inmates routinely served less than a third of their sentences. Mathis said inmates in county jail were more likely to serve their entire sentence.

“They did absolutely everything allowable under the circumstances … to get a meaningful sentence,” Mathis said of the prosecutors handling Jillian’s case. “You look at these cases and never feel you get enough. They did the best they could.”

Gabrielle’s mother, Misty Rhue, wept in 1997 when she spoke to the Florida Times-Union about the case. “He killed my baby,” she said.

In the years after the convictions, Lukehart kept fighting execution. He argued that Florida’s lethal injection method would amount to cruel and unusual punishment for him because of kidney disease.

His attorneys told the Florida Supreme Court that there was “a substantial and imminent risk that executing Lukehart under those procedures will very likely cause him needless pain and suffering.”

Florida’s attorney general’s office rejected those arguments. telling the Florida Supreme Court in a filing that Lukehart had been on borrowed time for decades while his victims waited. “The simple truth is Lukehart has been living on borrowed time for decades while his victims awaited the justice they are now entitled to under our Constitution. ” the attorney general’s office said. “There is no time left for Lukehart to borrow.”.

Last week, the Florida Supreme Court denied Lukehart a stay of execution. The U.S. Supreme Court denied his last outstanding appeal on Tuesday.

Before the U.S. shifts to the next case, attention is already turning to Alabama. The next execution scheduled in the U.S. is Jeffrey Lee in Alabama on June 11. Alabama plans to execute Lee using a nitrogen gas method for the 1998 shooting deaths of a pawn shop owner and employee.

Nitrogen gas entered the spotlight when Alabama carried out the first execution by that method in the U.S. in January 2024. Since then, the state has used the method on six other inmates, amid objections about possible suffering. Some arguments have also come from members of the Jewish community who say the method hearkens back to Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust.

Witness accounts from some Alabama executions describe “suffering. including conscious terror for several minutes. shaking. gasping. and other evidence of distress. ” according to an opinion by Louisiana Chief District Judge Shelly Dick that temporarily blocked Hoffman’s execution. In that description. witnesses said inmates were “writhing” under restraints. “vigorous convulsing and shaking for four minutes. ” heaving. spitting. and experiencing “a conscious struggling for life.”.

Louisiana became the second state to use the method when it executed Jesse Hoffman in March 2025.

In Alabama. a federal judge ruled last week that the method may not be pain-free but that does not mean it violates inmates’ constitutional rights. The ruling came from a lawsuit challenging the method brought by Lee. who is now set to become the eighth inmate to be executed by lethal gas in the U.S. “While Lee establishes that death by nitrogen hypoxia involves some suffering. he fails to show that the protocol is cruel and unusual in violation of the Eighth Amendment. ” U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks wrote.

Back in Florida, Lukehart’s execution closed a case that prosecutors described as escalating from one infant beating to another murder while he was on probation. In his last moment, he asked for forgiveness and recited a verse about mercy.

The next calendar page in the death-penalty fight will arrive June 11, when Alabama takes up nitrogen gas as the next test of what the country will allow—and what it will refuse.

Florida execution Andrew Lukehart Gabrielle Hanshaw lethal injection death penalty Misty Rhue probation Supreme Court nitrogen gas execution Jeffrey Lee Alabama