Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant Tuesday for Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., setting his execution for Sept. 10 at 6:00 p.m. at Florida State Prison in Raiford.
Conahan, 72, a former nurse from Punta Gorda, was sentenced to death in 1999 for the 1996 kidnapping and murder of 21-year-old Richard Alan Montgomery.
While Conahan was convicted of only one murder, police long suspected him of being a serial killer behind the “Hog Trail Murders”—a series of unsolved killings in Charlotte, Sarasota, and Lee counties during the 1990s.
The warrant sent to Warden Randall Polk sets an official execution window from noon on Sept. 10 through noon on Sept. 17.
“Enclosed is the death warrant that I signed to carry out the sentence for Daniel Owen Conahan, Jr., as well as certified copies of his judgment and sentence,” DeSantis wrote in his official letter to the warden.
According to court documents, Montgomery disappeared on April 16, 1996, after telling friends he was meeting a man to pose for nude photos for money. Utility workers found his body the next day in a wooded area in Charlotte County. Autopsy reports showed he was tied to a tree and strangled.
Investigators noticed Montgomery’s death matched a pattern of bodies found in remote areas of Southwest Florida between 1994 and 1996. Many of the victims were young men lured with promises of paid photography work. Detectives also pointed to a 1994 survivor, Stanley Burden, who told police that Conahan tied him to a tree and tried to strangle him before he escaped.
In a letter backing the warrant, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier stated that Conahan’s appeals have been turned down by both state and federal courts.
“The record has been reviewed and there are no stays of execution issued by any court of competent jurisdiction in this cause,” Uthmeier wrote. “Based upon the above-referenced summary of litigation affirming the judgment and sentence of death imposed for first-degree murder, the record is legally sufficient to support the issuance of a death warrant.”
The Florida Supreme Court upheld Conahan’s conviction in 2003, and federal appeals courts rejected his remaining petitions in 2023 and 2024. State officials also confirmed that executive clemency was reviewed and denied.
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