{"id":177717,"date":"2026-03-04T12:41:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T12:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/177717\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T12:41:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T12:41:15","slug":"florida-executes-man-for-1991-murder-of-fort-pierce-police-officer-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/177717\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida executes man for 1991 murder of Fort Pierce Police officer"},"content":{"rendered":"

RAIFORD, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 More than three decades after the killing<\/a> of a Fort Pierce police officer, the man convicted of the crime has been executed.<\/p>\n

William “Billy” Kearse was executed on Tuesday by lethal injection<\/a> just after 6 p.m. at the Florida State Prison in Raiford. CBS12\u2019s Jim Grimes, who was at the scene, reports that Kearse\u2019s last words were an apology.<\/p>\n

“I apologize for what I’ve done. I apologize to the family, my death will not repay it. I ask for God’s forgiveness and thank you,” were Kearse’s final words. <\/p>\n

See also: Liquid Courage? Allegedly drunk 79-year-old woman accused of punching cop in face<\/a><\/p>\n

Mirtha Busbin, the widow of Fort Pierce Police Officer Danny Parrish, said that she and her family were not expecting an apology.<\/p>\n

“I do find peace in knowing Mr. Kearse did apologize prior to his departure and that had given me peace knowing I can move on,” Busbnin said.<\/p>\n

On January 18, 1991, Fort Pierce Police Officer Danny Parrish stopped a car driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Behind the wheel was 18-year-old Billy Kearse, who did not have a driver\u2019s license; the stop quickly escalated into a struggle, during which Kearse grabbed the officer\u2019s service weapon and fired more than a dozen shots into Parrish.<\/p>\n

Investigators used the license plate to trace the vehicle to a nearby address, where Billy Kearse was arrested shortly afterward.<\/p>\n

According to court documents, Kearse confessed to the shooting and was convicted of first-degree murder later that year, receiving a death sentence. Over the next three decades, his case went through multiple state and federal appeals. In 1997, the Florida Supreme Court ordered a new sentencing hearing, after which Kearse was again sentenced to death. In January, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the death<\/a> warrant.<\/p>\n

Kearse is the third person to be executed this year, and Governor DeSantis has already signed another death warrant for next month, putting Florida on track to set a modern-day record for lethal injections.<\/p>\n

Florida carried out 19 executions in 2025, a modern-era record. The modern era represents the time since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, after a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision halted it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RAIFORD, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 More than three decades after the killing of a Fort Pierce police officer, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-177717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}