TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2013 Andrew Richard Lukehart was put to death Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison in Starke for the killing of his girlfriend\u2019s five-month-old daughter in Jacksonville 30 years ago.<\/p>\n
Convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse of Gabrielle Hanshaw, Lukehart, 53, was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m., according to the state Department of Corrections.<\/p>\n
The execution was the eighth this year by the state, which set a modern era record with 19 in 2025.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied attempts to halt the execution, and the Florida Supreme Court denied another attempt last Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Lukehart\u2019s attorneys claimed the state\u2019s use of etomidate — the first drug administered in the three-drug lethal injection process — has the potential to cause needless suffering. But the Florida Supreme Court rejected the argument.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese conclusory speculations do not present an imminent risk that Florida\u2019s lethal injection protocol is sure or very likely to cause Lukehart needless suffering,\u201d the court opinion stated. \u201cThis is especially true given the (Department of Corrections) \u2018is entitled to the presumption that it will comply with the lethal injection protocol,\u2019 which includes \u2018safeguards to ensure the condemned is unconscious throughout the execution.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
According to court records, Lukehart took Hanshaw to a room to change her diaper and was then seen driving away from the house.<\/p>\n
Lukehart initially told his girlfriend and police the girl had been abducted, resulting in an eighteen-hour search by the Jacksonville and Clay County Sheriff\u2019s offices. He later changed his story, telling officers he had dropped the girl on her head, shook her, then panicked, drove to a rural area and threw the girl\u2019s body into a pond.<\/p>\n
Records state Hanshaw\u2019s injuries included five separate hits to her head and were inconsistent with Lukehart\u2019s account.<\/p>\n
Lukehart testified during the guilt phase of his trial Hanshaw would not lie flat on the floor as he tried to change her diaper. Before the jury voted 9-3 to recommend death, the state also established during penalty phase that at the time of Hanshaw\u2019s death, Lukehart was a probation for felony child abuse involving a previous girlfriend\u2019s baby.<\/p>\n
Lukehart\u2019s legal team and opponents of the death penalty raised issues about his health and the potential effects of the drugs used in the lethal injection process. They also pointed to Tennessee\u2019s aborted May 21 execution of Tony Carruthers after officials struggled to find a vein to administer a dose of pentobarbital.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe question is no longer whether warning signs exist. The question is why Florida\u2019s government continues to ignore them,\u201d Bridget Maloney, Communications Director for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said in a released statement. \u201cWhat happened in Tennessee last week was horrific and inexcusable, and the reality is that Florida has even less transparency, less ability to halt an execution that is going wrong, and one of the most notorious histories of botched executions in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The execution is the first of two scheduled for this month.<\/p>\n
Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, scheduled to die by lethal injection on June 25 for murdering his wife 34 years ago in Orange County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2013 Andrew Richard Lukehart was put to death Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison in Starke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[265,28,30,29,116,232],"class_list":["post-293749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-crime","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-jacksonville","tag-tallahassee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293749","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=293749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}