Thomas Gudinas, 51, was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on Tuesday evening for the 1994 murder of Michelle McGrath, marking one of two executions scheduled in the United States this week.
The Florida Department of Corrections confirmed the execution was carried out at 6:13 p.m. EDT, just thirteen minutes after the scheduled time.
Gudinas had been on death row since his 1995 conviction for the murder of McGrath, whose battered body was found the day after she was last seen leaving an Orlando bar in the early hours. Gudinas was arrested shortly thereafter.
READ: Florida And Alabama Carry Out Executions On Same Day For Decades-Old Murders
Florida has now carried out seven executions this year, more than any other U.S. state.
Meanwhile, a second execution is slated to take place Wednesday in Mississippi. Richard Jordan, 79, who has been on Death Row for 49 years, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6:00 p.m. Central Time (2300 GMT) at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman.
Jordan was convicted and sentenced to death in 1976 for the murder of Edwina Marter, the wife of a bank executive in Gulfport. Jordan, a shipyard worker, kidnapped Marter from her home and demanded a $25,000 ransom. He was apprehended when attempting to collect the money and subsequently confessed to murdering Marter, leading authorities to her body in a forest, where she had been shot.
READ: Florida Death Row Inmate Donald David Dillbeck Executed By Lethal Injection
The execution of Jordan will be Mississippi’s first since December 2022. The United States has seen 24 executions so far this year. The majority, 19, have been carried out by lethal injection.
Two executions have been by firing squad, and three by nitrogen hypoxia, a method that involves pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.
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