Florida executes man convicted of raping and killing a woman 3 decades ago

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of raping and killing a woman three decades ago after kidnapping her from a supermarket parking lot was executed Tuesday in Florida.

Anthony Wainwright, 54, received a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted in the April 1994 killing of 23-year-old Carmen Gayheart, a nursing student and mother of two young children, in Lake City.

The execution began about 6:10 p.m. Wainwright’s shoulders shuddered a couple of times, and he blinked and took several deep breaths before becoming still at 6:14 p.m.

Wainwright was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m., according to Byran Griffin, a spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Wainwright made a final statement, but the words were inaudible from the witness room.

He is the sixth person put to death in Florida this year, and another execution is scheduled for later this month. The state executed six people in 2023, but only carried out one execution last year. There were four executions scheduled around the country this week, including another one on Tuesday in Alabama. A temporary stay was issued Monday for an execution scheduled for Thursday in Oklahoma.

Richard Hamilton was also convicted in Gayheart’s killing and sentenced to death. But he died on death row in January 2023 at the age of 59.

Gayheart’s sister said before the execution that three decades was too long to wait for justice.

“It’s ridiculous how many appeals they get,” Maria David told The Associated Press, adding that each step of the appeals process reopened her family’s wounds. “You have to relive it again because they have to tell the whole story again.”

Wainwright and Hamilton escaped from prison in North Carolina, stole a green Cadillac and burglarized a home the next morning, taking guns and money. Then they drove to Florida and when the Cadillac began to have problems in Lake City, they decided to steal another vehicle.

They confronted Gayheart, a community college student, on April 27, 1994, as she loaded groceries into her blue Ford Bronco, according to court documents. They forced her into the vehicle at gunpoint and drove off. They raped her in the backseat and then took her out of the vehicle and tried to strangle her before shooting her twice in the back of the head, court filings say. They dragged her body several dozen yards from the road and drove off.

The two men were arrested in Mississippi the next day after a shootout with police.

A jury in 1995 convicted Wainwright of murder, kidnapping, robbery and rape and unanimously recommended that he be sentenced to death.

“It closes the legal chapter, that is all,” David told reporters after the execution was carried out. “I will carry this with me for the rest of my life. I will never get over what happened to Carmen.”

David, who witnessed the execution, said she “just kept thinking what he did to my sister.” She said 17 family were witnesses, including Gayheart’s husband, son and mother-in-law.

About two dozen friends and family, most wearing “Justice for Carmen Gayheart” T-shirts, embraced each other as they piled out of cars in a field near the prison for a news conference afterward.

Gayheart’s mother-in-law, Gale Gayheart, called Wainwright a “coward” and said “he was finally brought to justice today.” She added that she wished family who have ed away could have been there today to have that sense of closure.

Wainwright’s lawyers filed multiple unsuccessful appeals over the years based on what they said were problems with his trial and evidence that he suffered from brain damage and intellectual disability.

Once his execution was scheduled, his lawyers argued in state and federal court filings that his execution should be put on hold to allow time for courts to hear additional legal arguments in his case.

In a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, his lawyers argued that his case was “marred by critical, systemic failures at virtually every stage and through the g of his death warrant.” Those failures include flawed DNA evidence that wasn’t disclosed to the defense until after opening statements, erroneous jury instructions, inflammatory and inaccurate closing arguments and missteps by court-appointed lawyers, the filing says.

The filing also said that a jailhouse informant who testified at Wainwright’s trial finally itted last month that he and another informant had testified in exchange for lighter sentences, a fact that had not been disclosed to the defense.

The Supreme Court on Monday denied Wainwright’s several of his final appeals without comment.

His lawyers filed a last-minute effort to seek a stay of execution Tuesday morning, focusing on claims that he was improperly barred from hiring a lawyer of his choice under state law. The high court denied his request just before the execution began in the evening.

David said her sister loved animals and surprised her by training to become a nurse rather than a veterinarian, David said. Gayheart was two years younger than her sister but became a mother first, and David said she marveled at her sister’s patience with her young children.

“Carmen was a devoted wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend,” David said after the execution, adding that it was Wainwright’s choices that “led us to this point today.”

Over the years, she has kept a book where she put every court filing, from the initial indictment through the latest appeals.

“I’m looking forward to getting the last pieces of paperwork that say he’s been executed to put into the book and never having to think about Anthony Wainwright ever again,” David said.

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.