Andrew Richard Lukehart was executed Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison in Starke for the killing of his girlfriend’s infant daughter.
The 53-year-old was slated to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Lukehart was sentenced to death in 1997 for the 1996 first-degree murder and severe child abuse of Gabrielle Hanshaw, who was five months old. This is Florida’s eighth execution this year, following 19 in 2025.
According to court documents, in February 1996, Lukehart was babysitting Gabrielle in Jacksonville while his girlfriend cared for her other sick daughter. The mother claimed that Lukehart drove away from the house and the infant vanished. Lukehart later called the mother, claiming the infant had been kidnapped and that he was pursuing the abductor. Police eventually found Lukehart in a neighboring county after he crashed his car.
The following day, Lukehart confessed to investigators that Gabrielle died after he dropped and shook her. He informed authorities that he panicked and dumped her body into a pond, where investigators later found it.
The Florida Supreme Court rejected Lukehart’s appeals last week. Defense attorneys had argued that Lukehart’s kidney medication could interact negatively with the lethal injection drugs and that the one-month timeline between the signing of his death warrant and the execution date violated due process. The United States Supreme Court refused a final appeal on Monday.
The execution marks a significant increase in the state’s use of capital punishment. Governor Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in 2025 than any other Florida governor in a single year since the death penalty was reintroduced in 1976, exceeding the previous record of eight from 2014. Nationwide, 47 people were executed in 2025, with Florida leading the total. Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas all carried out five executions that year.
Florida utilizes a three-drug lethal injection protocol consisting of a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug designed to stop the heart, according to the Department of Corrections. Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, is scheduled for execution later this month after being convicted of fatally stabbing his wife in 1992.
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