Florida set – Florida is set to execute Andrew Richard Lukehart, 53, on Tuesday, June 2, for the 1996 killing of 5-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw. The execution is moving forward even as Lukehart argues Florida’s lethal-injection protocol—challenged on grounds tied to his kidn
By the time Tuesday’s execution date arrives, the timeline leaves little room for doubt. Florida is set to put Andrew Richard Lukehart to death on Tuesday, June 2, at 6 p.m. ET at the Florida State Prison near Starke.
Lukehart. 53. is scheduled for lethal injection for the 1996 murder of 5-month-old Garbrielle Hanshaw—spelled Gabrielle in the case reporting—who died after he hit her five times and fractured her skull. If the execution proceeds as expected, Lukehart would be the 15th inmate put to death in the U.S. this year and the eighth in Florida, far more than any other state.
Lukehart’s case sits at the center of an especially punishing sequence: he beat Gabrielle to death while he was on probation for beating a previous girlfriend’s daughter so severely that the earlier victim’s skull was fractured, and both her legs, an arm, and two ribs were broken.
Misty Rhue, Gabrielle’s mother, wept as she spoke about the crime in 1997, saying, “He killed my baby.”
The killing, the cover story, and the probation he was on
On Feb. 26, 1996, 22-year-old Andrew Richard Lukehart 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.
He dumped Gabrielle’s body in a local pond and, court records show, concocted a story meant to trick police. Lukehart told investigators that someone had kidnapped Gabrielle from his car after he parked it in front of a convenience store, records show.
Investigators say his account shifted quickly. He told police he saw the “kidnapper” flee in a blue Bazer and that he chased them down before he got into a car accident. Police became suspicious as the story kept changing. launching a widespread search for Gabrielle that included 50 officers. police dogs. a helicopter. and a dive team before police say Lukehart led them to Gabrielle’s body.
Lukehart later admitted to hitting the baby. During his trial, he testified that he loved Gabrielle and never intended to kill her, according to archived news reports. He also said, “If only she hadn’t (dirtied her diaper).”
The earlier beating that brought him a probationary track
Two years before Gabrielle died, Lukehart pleaded guilty to beating his former girlfriend’s daughter, an 8-month-old girl named Jillian. In that case. he initially told police that Jillian had been drowning in a 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 said she was angry about the 10-month sentence Lukehart received for hurting her granddaughter. In 1996, she told the newspaper, “I was just waiting to hear about something else,” adding that she had always feared another child would be in danger.
E. McRae Mathis. chief assistant state attorney at the time. told the newspaper that prosecutors on 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 of the girl’s injuries—because her mom was charged with neglect—and that overcrowding in Florida’s prisons at the time meant inmates routinely served less than a third of their sentences. while those in county jail were more likely to serve their entire terms.
Mathis said, “They did absolutely everything allowable under the circumstances … to get a meaningful sentence,” and added, “You look at these cases and never feel you get enough. They did the best they could.”
The execution fight: kidney disease and the lethal injection method
As Florida prepares to carry out the sentence, Lukehart is still contesting the execution itself. In filings, he argued that Florida’s lethal injection method would amount to cruel and unusual punishment because of his kidney disease.
Lukehart’s challenge told Florida’s Supreme Court that there is “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 the argument. In a filing with the Florida Supreme Court. the office said. “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. ” and stated. “There is no time left for Lukehart to borrow.”.
The Florida Supreme Court denied Lukehart a stay of execution last week. He still has one outstanding appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court.
What happens next in the wider U.S. death-penalty calendar
Florida’s scheduled execution sits within a broader stretch of capital punishment. The next execution in the U.S. is Jeffrey Lee in Alabama on June 11. Alabama plans to execute Lee by the relatively new nitrogen gas method for the 1998 shooting deaths of a pawn shop owner and employee.
Alabama made history when it conducted the first execution by nitrogen gas in the U.S. in January 2024. Since then. the state has used the method on six other inmates. despite objections about possible suffering and arguments from some in the Jewish community that it hearkens back to Nazi gas chambers during the Holocaust.
Louisiana became the second state to use the method when it executed Jesse Hoffman in March 2025.
Witness accounts described distress in some cases. In an opinion that temporarily blocked Hoffman’s execution. Louisiana Chief District Judge Shelly Dick wrote that witness reports included “suffering. including conscious terror for several minutes. shaking. gasping. and other evidence of distress.” She also wrote that inmates were “writhing” under their restraints. “vigorous convulsing and shaking for four minutes. ” heaving. spitting. and showing a “conscious struggling for life.”.
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 followed a lawsuit challenging the method by Lee. who is set to become the eighth inmate to be executed by lethal gas in the U.S. U.S. District Judge Emily C. Marks wrote that 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.”.
The immediate picture: a sentence moving toward the clock
For Lukehart, the clock is now the Florida State Prison schedule—Tuesday, June 2, at 6 p.m. ET. The Florida Supreme Court has already denied a stay, leaving him only a pending U.S. Supreme Court appeal. His execution is still scheduled unless that appeal alters the outcome.
And for the families left behind, the dispute over method and the dispute over what suffering means are not abstract. Gabrielle Hanshaw’s death—carried out while he was already on probation for a prior beating that included a fractured skull—remains the core fact that has driven the push to move forward.
As the U.S. death-penalty docket moves into Alabama’s nitrogen gas date. Florida is pressing toward lethal injection for Lukehart. with the legal fight narrowing to a single. unresolved question in the U.S. Supreme Court: whether the punishment can proceed as scheduled despite arguments tied to his kidney disease.
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