In 2000, a Broward mom and 4-year-old daughter were stabbed to death. Now their killer is to be executed<\/a><\/p>\nFlorida\u2019s seventh\u00a0execution\u00a0of the year followed a\u00a0record 19 executions in the state in 2025.\u00a0Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was eight in 2014. And all told, a total of\u00a047 people\u00a0were executed in the U.S. in 2025.<\/p>\n
According to court records, Knight had been living in Coral Springs with the girl and her parents in 2000. Knight and Stephens frequently argued about Knight living there. One evening while Knight\u2019s cousin was at work, Stephens told Knight he would have to move out the next morning. Knight became angry and stabbed Stephens multiple times and then attacked the young girl, the records show.<\/p>\n
Hans Mullings, who was Stephens\u2019 boyfriend and the father of the 4-year-old, told reporters after witnessing Thursday\u2019s execution that his family still grieves the loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pain never leaves,\u201d Mullings said. \u201cWe love them still, and we can\u2019t stop loving them. We miss them a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephens\u2019 sisters and mother didn\u2019t attend the execution, but provided a statement expressing closure.<\/p>\n
\u201cWords cannot express the profound sense of peace and finality we feel today,\u201d it said. \u201cWhile this does not fill the empty space in our hearts, the closing of this long, painful chapter allows us to fully focus on honoring the beautiful lives of Odessia and Hanessia.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRichard, may our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ grant you the mercy you failed to give our loved ones whom you so brutally took from us that night,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Knight\u2019s final appeal without comment.<\/p>\n
That came shortly after the planned\u00a0execution\u00a0of a Tennessee inmate,\u00a0Tony Carruthers, was called off. Tennessee officials said a team quickly established Carruthers\u2019 main IV line for a lethal injection but couldn\u2019t find a suitable vein for a backup line required under the state\u2019s execution protocol. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee later announced the state would not try again for at least a year to execute Carruthers, who was convicted of killing three people.<\/p>\n
Also this week, an Arizona prisoner convicted of killing another man by\u00a0throwing gasoline at him and lighting a match\u00a0was\u00a0put to death\u00a0Wednesday. Leroy Dean McGill, 63, received a lethal injection at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence for the death of Charles Perez, who was attacked at a north Phoenix apartment in 2002.<\/p>\n
Florida, meanwhile, is preparing to conduct another execution on June 2. Andrew Richard Lukehart, 53, was convicted of fatally beating of his girlfriend\u2019s infant daughter in 1996. All Florida executions are by lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, officials say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STARKE \u2014 A South Florida man convicted of fatally stabbing a mother and her 4-year-old daughter was put…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,4555,112,28,29,249,251,250,115,109],"class_list":["post-280737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-coral-springs","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-florida","tag-florida-news","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280737","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=280737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}