Florida set to execute 14th person this year with two more execution dates set

Harold Lucas, sentenced to death over 1976 murder, killed by lethal injection as state continues execution rush

A Florida man convicted of killing a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends was executed Tuesday evening.

Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6.18pm following a three-drug injection starting at 6pm at Florida state prison near Starke, authorities said.

He was sentenced to death over the 1976 fatal shooting of Jill Piper and the wounding of her friends, Richard Byrd Jr and Terri Rice.

Asked if he had any final statement before the injection began, Lucas said no, spokesman Alex Lanfranconi in the governor’s office said. The spokesman said the execution was carried out without complications.

Lucas is the 14th prisoner put to death in Florida this year, and Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor, has already signed death warrants for two more execution dates later this month.

Lucas chose not to file any last-ditch court appeals, telling a judge after his death warrant was issued, that he wanted to waive all post-conviction proceedings.

“I’ve been on death row for 50 years, and I have no desire to carry this any further,” Lucas told the judge, according to court transcripts. “The sooner it’s over, the better I’ll enjoy it. I am tired.”

On Tuesday, Lucas awoke at 545am and was later visited by his sister and given a meal of steak and fries, corrections department spokesman Jordan Kirkland said. Lucas did not meet with a spiritual adviser, Kirkland added at an afternoon news briefing.

Lucas was sentenced to death – and resentenced to death four more times – after being convicted of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder for the attack.

According to court records, Lucas was 24 in August 1976 when he was arrested for trespassing at Piper’s Bonita Springs home, south of Fort Myers. Lucas had known the teen for four years and worked for her family, officials said. Lucas and Piper had previously dated and Lucas told a friend he planned to marry Piper.

About a week after the arrest, Lucas and Piper had two separate confrontations on the same day, several hours apart, investigators said. Witnesses testified Lucas threatened to kill Piper.

Piper asked Byrd and Rice to spend that night at her home for protection, officials said. Lucas eventually showed up with a rifle and shot Piper multiple times while she begged for her life and then shot and wounded her friends, investigators said. Lucas was arrested the next day.

Lucas was initially sentenced to death in 1977 with a 12-0 jury recommendation, court records show. The Florida supreme court later ruled the trial judge was wrong to consider the heinousness of the attempted murders while deciding the sentence for the murder. That same trial judge resentenced Lucas to death in 1980.

By the time a third sentencing was ordered, the original trial judge had died and a new judge was assigned.

That judge sentenced Lucas to death in 1985, but the Florida supreme court later ruled a new jury should hear the case, though the conviction itself would still stand. The new jury recommended death by 11-1, and Lucas was sentenced to death for a fourth time in 1987. The Florida supreme court ruled that sentencing order was not clear, and Lucas was sentenced to death for a final time in 1990.

A total of 47 people were executed in the US in 2025. Florida led the way with 19 lethal injections, a record in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Florida has carried out more than half of the 23 total executions in the US this year. In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day, the first state in nearly a decade to do so.

Two more Florida executions are planned this month, that of Daniel Owen Conahan Jr, 72, on 10 September, and Curtis Wilkie Beasley, 77, on 29 September.

Conahan was convicted of kidnapping and strangling a man he had paid to pose for nude photos, and authorities suspect him of similar homicides committed in the 1990s in south-west Florida. Beasley was convicted of beating a woman to death with a hammer, robbing her and stealing her car in 1995.

All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the department of corrections.