Florida execution was carried out Tuesday for a man convicted of killing a teenage girl who had rejected his advances and wounding two of her friends, the first of three lethal injections scheduled in the state this month.
Authorities said Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was condemned for the 1976 shooting of Jill Piper and the wounding of her friends, Richard Byrd Jr. and Terri Rice.
According to the governor’s office, Lucas declined to make a final statement when asked, and the procedure concluded without complications.
Officials said Lucas was the 14th prisoner executed in Florida this year. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has already signed warrants for two more executions this month. State data show Florida has carried out more than half of the two dozen executions conducted nationwide this year.
Court filings indicate Lucas chose not to pursue final appeals after his warrant was signed. “I’ve been on death row for 50 years, and I have no desire to carry this any further,” he told a judge, according to transcripts. “The sooner it’s over, the better I’ll enjoy it. I am tired.”
Florida execution follows decades of litigation
Records show Lucas was 24 in August 1976 when he was arrested for trespassing at Piper’s home in Bonita Springs, south of Fort Myers. He had known the teen for about four years and had worked for her family. The two had previously dated, according to the case record.
Investigators said that about a week after the trespassing arrest, Lucas and Piper had two confrontations on the same day, hours apart, and witnesses recounted that Lucas threatened to kill her. Piper then asked Byrd and Rice to stay the night for protection, officials said. Lucas arrived at the home with a rifle, shot Piper multiple times as she begged for her life, and then shot and wounded her two friends. He was arrested the following day.
Lucas was convicted of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder. He was initially sentenced to death in 1977 after a 12-0 jury recommendation. The Florida Supreme Court later ruled the trial judge erred by weighing the heinousness of the attempted murders when imposing the sentence for the murder, and the same judge resentenced Lucas to death in 1980.
By the time a third sentencing was ordered, the original judge had died and a new judge took over. That judge again imposed death in 1985, but the Florida Supreme Court ruled a new jury should consider the sentence while leaving the conviction intact. A new jury recommended death 11-1, and Lucas was sentenced to death for a fourth time in 1987. The high court later found that sentencing order unclear, resulting in a fifth death sentence in 1990.
Florida execution amid a busy year for death penalty cases
According to national tallies, 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led that year with 19 lethal injections, the most in the state since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976.
In July, Florida executed two prisoners in a single day, becoming the first state in nearly a decade to do so. Two additional executions are scheduled this month: Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, on Sept. 10, and Curtis Wilkie Beasley, 77, on Sept. 29. Conahan was convicted of kidnapping and strangling a man he paid to pose for nude photographs, and authorities have said he is suspected in similar killings in southwest Florida in the 1990s. Beasley was convicted of killing a woman with a hammer in 1995, then robbing her and stealing her car.
The Department of Corrections states that Florida uses a three-drug protocol for lethal injection consisting of a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug that stops the heart.
Officials in other high-profile cases, including Sae Joon Park, have also highlighted how long-term incarceration and complex legal proceedings can reshape the course of a defendant’s life.