A death warrant signed by Florida’s governor orders Andrew Richard Lukehart to be executed in June of 2026 for the murder of 5-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw.<\/p>\n
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 More than 30 years after the death of a 5-month-old baby in Duval County, the man convicted of her murder is set to be executed.<\/p>\n
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant for Andrew Richard Lukehart, 53, on Friday, ordering his execution for June.<\/p>\n
Lukehart was convicted and sentenced to death (9-3) in 1997 for the first-degree murder of his girlfriend’s daughter, Gabrielle Hanshaw, the year before.<\/p>\n
According to the arrest report, Lukehart called police that February, reporting that Gabrielle had been abducted from his home by an unknown suspect. During the investigation, Lukehart admitted that he lied about the abduction and led police to her body, which had been thrown in a pond near Normandy Boulevard.<\/p>\n
Although initially claiming he had accidentally dropped Gabrielle on her head and disposed of her body in a panic, he testified at trial that he had “forcefully and repeatedly pushed her head and neck to the floor” because she wouldn’t lie flat while he attempted to change her diaper, according to court documents.<\/p>\n
The case has faced pushback in appeals from Lockhart’s defense, which previously attempted to have the sentence reduced when Florida required a unanimous death recommendation from a jury for it to be imposed. That requirement was rescinded in 2023, when the state ruled an 8-4 jury recommendation was sufficient. The defense also argued that Lockhart’s use of multiple medications, including an anti-psychotic, during the trial may have caused confusion and made him give false testimony about the manner of Gabrielle’s death.<\/p>\n
His death sentence was upheld by the Florida Supreme Court. Lockhart could be executed as soon as June 2, barring a stay of execution order.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Six people have been executed in Florida so far in 2026. A record 19 inmates were executed by the state in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A death warrant signed by Florida’s governor orders Andrew Richard Lukehart to be executed in June of 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-257003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257003","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=257003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}