JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The last day of Gabrielle Hanshaw\u2019s short life was unseasonably warm for February. The temperature soared to 80 degrees in Jacksonville that Sunday in 1996.<\/p>\n
Gabby\u2019s family spent the hot afternoon running errands, then went back to their home on Epson Lane, near Normandy Boulevard.<\/p>\n
Gabby was placed in her playpen. Her mom, Misty, took her 2-year-old sister, Ashley, into a bedroom to lie down because Ashley had been sick.<\/p>\n
That left 5-month-old Gabby in the care of 22-year-old Andrew Lukehart, her mother\u2019s boyfriend.<\/p>\n
He would be the last person to see her alive.<\/p>\n
Gabrielle Hanshaw was killed at 5 months old in 1996 (WJXT Archives)<\/p>\n
On June 2, 2026, Lukehart is set to be executed, more than 30 years after Gabby drew her last breath while in his care.<\/p>\n
He was convicted in February 1997 of child abuse and felony murder in Gabby\u2019s death, and a jury recommended the death penalty in a 9-3 vote.<\/p>\n
After decades of appeals, Tuesday\u2019s execution at Florida State Prison in Raiford feels like it\u2019s been a long time coming for Gabby\u2019s mother. <\/p>\n
Misty declined an interview for this story, but she did tell News4JAX she will be at Lukehart\u2019s execution.<\/p>\n
Andrew Lukehart’s Florida Department of Corrections mughot (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)How the case unfolded<\/p>\n
Around 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 25, 1996, Lukehart picked Gabby up out of the playpen and noticed she had a messy diaper. He went into the room where Misty was lying down with Ashley to get a clean diaper and some baby wipes, but Misty told him the baby wipes were in the back den.<\/p>\n
Lukehart took the clean diaper and Gabby into the room at the back of the house.<\/p>\n
Misty never saw Gabby alive again.<\/p>\n
Gabrielle Hanshaw’s mother reacts outside a courtroom in 1997 after a jury convicted her ex-boyfriend, Andrew Lukehart, in the murder of her 5-month-old daughter. (WJXT Archives)<\/p>\n
Around 5 p.m., she heard her car \u2013 a white 1981 Oldsmobile Regency – start up in the driveway and looked out to see Lukehart driving away. She checked the house but couldn\u2019t find Gabby anywhere.<\/p>\n
Where was he going? And where was Gabby?<\/p>\n
Half an hour later, Lukehart called from a Lil\u2019 Champ convenience on Normandy Boulevard and told Misty to call 911.<\/p>\n
He said someone had come into the home, taken Gabby and left in a blue Chevrolet Blazer. He was chasing the kidnappers in her car.<\/p>\n
That was a lie.<\/p>\n
But Misty didn\u2019t know that, so she hung up and called police to report the kidnapping.<\/p>\n
Around 6 p.m., half an hour after Lukehart had called Misty, a Clay County deputy responding to a crash report found Misty\u2019s Oldsmobile abandoned on the side of County Road 217.<\/p>\n
Investigators look into the disappearance of 5-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw in 1996 (WJXT Archives)<\/p>\n
It was still running and in drive about 50 feet off the road in a ditch near a telephone pole. <\/p>\n
Deputy Jeff Gardner saw a baby chair in the back seat on the passenger side and some baby clothes on the floorboard.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t know about the reported abduction and spent the next hour trying to find the owner of the car. Eventually, he got a number for Misty\u2019s house and called.<\/p>\n
Someone with the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office answered the phone.<\/p>\n
Gardner heard the story about the reported abduction of a 5-month-old and that Misty\u2019s boyfriend said he had used her car to chase potential kidnappers in a blue Chevy Blazer. <\/p>\n
Gardner had found the car, but where was Lukehart?<\/p>\n
A few minutes after talking with the officers, Gardner found out.<\/p>\n
Lukehart, wearing no shirt and no shoes, had walked up to a home in rural Clay County that happened to belong to a Florida Highway Patrol trooper.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where Gardner picked him up and brought him back to the crash site, where he eventually spoke with JSO Detective Tim Reddish.<\/p>\n
When Reddish told Lukehart that neighbors on Epson Lane had seen him driving away in the Oldsmobile but never saw a blue Blazer, Lukehart shifted his story.<\/p>\n
Now, he said the kidnappers had taken Gabby out of the car at the Lil\u2019 Champ.<\/p>\n
The whole situation seemed bizarre.<\/p>\n
But a reported child abduction was serious and time was crucial.<\/p>\n
Investigators search for 5-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw (WJXT Archives)<\/p>\n
A command center was set up in Clay County, where Lukehart said he had lost sight of the Blazer before crashing on the side of CR 217. (He later confessed that he\u2019d tried to ram the telephone pole but had missed.)<\/p>\n
After crashing, Lukehart left the car running in the ditch and walked into the woods, where he tried to hang himself from a tree using his shirt. When it didn\u2019t work, he walked out of the woods and up to the home of the FHP trooper.<\/p>\n
Still believing they were on the hunt for potential kidnappers, about 25-30 officers from Clay County and Jacksonville searched for Gabby through the night using dogs, helicopters and a dive team.<\/p>\n
The truth comes out<\/p>\n
By 6:45 a.m., during an interview at JSO headquarters, Lukehart said he would help Reddish retrace his route following the kidnappers. On the way, Reddish got Lukehart breakfast at a Burger King and clothes at a Walmart.<\/p>\n
At the time, he thought Lukehart was a witness, not a suspect.<\/p>\n
After going back over the route, Reddish and Lukehart ended up back at the crash scene, where Lukehart met Lt. Jimm Redmond with the Crimes Against Persons Unit of the Clay County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Redmond had asked to talk with Lukehart, hoping he might be able to get some new details out of him that could help investigators find Gabby.<\/p>\n
Around 10:30 a.m., Redmond got into the patrol car with Lukehart and went back over the kidnapping story with him. Then someone handed Redmond a photo of Gabby.<\/p>\n
Gabrielle Hanshaw’s grandfather wears a T-shirt with her photo on it to court in 1997 (WJXT Archives)<\/p>\n
He showed it to Lukehart, but the 22-year-old balked.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t show me the picture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Redmond asked why, and Lukehart said he \u201cjust didn\u2019t want to look at the picture.\u201d He was crying.<\/p>\n
Something shifted.<\/p>\n
Lukehart\u2019s reaction made Redmond switch gears.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, he told Lukehart he didn\u2019t believe his story about the kidnappers, and he tried to convince Lukehart to tell them where the baby was.<\/p>\n
About 20 minutes later, Lukehart caved.<\/p>\n
It was all a lie.<\/p>\n
There was no blue Chevy Blazer. There were no kidnappers. Gabrielle was not in Clay County.<\/p>\n
Andrew Lukehart is taken into custody in 1996 after admitting that he killed 5-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw and lied about her abduction (WJXT Archives)<\/p>\n
Something had happened at Misty\u2019s house when he was changing Gabrielle\u2019s diaper, and the little girl was dead.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d panicked and left the house with her, then threw her body in a pond off Crystal Springs Road.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where investigators found Gabby.<\/p>\n
Previous child abuse case<\/p>\n
One of the factors jurors considered when they recommended the death penalty for Lukehart was that he had a previous child abuse conviction from just two years earlier.<\/p>\n
Lukehart pleaded guilty in September 1994 and received four years\u2019 probation in a case involving the 8-month-old daughter of a woman he was living with.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Angela Corey, who was on the team that tried Lukehart, said the baby had suffered a \u201csevere\u201d head injury, retinal hemorrhages and broken ribs and had nearly drowned. <\/p>\n
Then-Assistant State Attorney Angela Corey speaks to the jury during the trial of Andrew Lukehart in 1997 (WJXT Archives)<\/p>\n
Lukehart admitted to leaving the 8-month-old alone in a tub briefly and finding her face down in the water.<\/p>\n
Despite pleading guilty, Lukehart has since claimed he was covering for the child\u2019s mother and did not cause the 8-month-old\u2019s injuries.<\/p>\n
So what really happened to Gabby?<\/p>\n
According to testimony from the Medical Examiner, 5-month-old Gabrielle had bruises on her arm and head. She\u2019d suffered five blows to the head, two of which had caused skull fractures.<\/p>\n
But like his previous child abuse case and his claim that Gabby was kidnapped, Lukehart\u2019s story about how Gabby had suffered her injuries kept changing.<\/p>\n
In his four-page written confession, he said he\u2019d dropped Gabby when she was wiggling in his arms after he changed her diaper, and she\u2019d fallen on her head and stopped breathing.<\/p>\n
But during the trial, when Lukehart testified in his own defense, he said he\u2019d been changing Gabby\u2019s diaper on the floor when she kept pushing herself up on her elbows. He said he forcefully pushed her down in the upper chest and neck four or five times and she struck her head on the carpet.<\/p>\n
Andrew Lukehart testifies in his own defense during his 1997 trial in the death of 5-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw (WJXT Archives)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last time I did it, she just stopped moving. She was just completely still,\u201d he said on the stand.<\/p>\n
But he admitted the distance he was pushing her down was only about 4 to 5 inches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have to be quite a forceful push to cause a fracture of this nature from that distance,\u201d Dr. Jack Daniel said on the stand.<\/p>\n
He also said it \u201cwould be a little unusual\u201d for a 5-month-old child to be able to push up on their elbows the way Lukehart had described.<\/p>\n
During the trial, Medical Examiner Dr. Bonifacio Floro said that Gabrielle\u2019s injuries required \u201cthe use of substantial force\u201d and could have been caused by \u201chard blows with a fist\u201d or by \u201cbeing slammed against a floor\u201d but not by an accidental fall from a few feet.<\/p>\n
At the time Gabby died, she was 24 inches long and weighed just 15 pounds. Lukehart, on the other hand, was 6-1 and weighed 225 pounds.<\/p>\n
Family members wore buttons with Gabrielle Hanshaw’s photo on them to court during Andrew Lukehart’s sentencing hearing in 1997 (WJXT Archives)<\/p>\n
During later appeals, Lukehart claimed he\u2019d been on medication during the trial that messed with his memory, forcing him to come up with the story about pushing Gabby to the ground. He reverted to saying he\u2019d dropped Gabby accidentally.<\/p>\n
The truth is, the only person who knows how Gabby suffered her fatal injuries will likely take those answers to his grave on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The last day of Gabrielle Hanshaw\u2019s short life was unseasonably warm for February. The temperature…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[123306,265,408,123307,116,118,117,123309,123308],"class_list":["post-291919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-andrew-lukehart","tag-crime","tag-death-penalty","tag-gabrielle-hanshaw","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-misty-hanshaw","tag-misty-rhue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291919","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=291919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}