By Canadian Press

Florida executes man convicted of raping and killing a woman 3 decades ago

Jun 10, 2025 | 3:43 PM

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of raping and killing a woman three decades ago after kidnapping her from a supermarket parking lot was executed Tuesday in Florida.

Anthony Wainwright, 54, received a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had been convicted in the April 1994 killing of 23-year-old Carmen Gayheart, a mother of two young children, in Lake City.

Wainwright was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m., said Byran Griffin, a spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Wainwright was the sixth person put to death in Florida this year, and another execution is scheduled for later this month. The state executed six people in 2023, but only carried out one execution last year. There were four executions scheduled around the country this week, including another one on Tuesday in Alabama. A temporary stay was issued Monday for an execution scheduled for Thursday in Oklahoma.

Richard Hamilton, the other man convicted in Gayheart’s killing, was also sentenced to death. But he died on death row in January 2023 at the age of 59.

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Gayheart’s sister said before the execution that three decades is too long to wait for justice.

“It’s ridiculous how many appeals they get,” Maria David told The Associated Press, adding that each step of the appeals process reopened her family’s wounds. “You have to relive it again because they have to tell the whole story again.”

Wainwright and Hamilton escaped from prison in North Carolina, stole a green Cadillac and burglarized a home the next morning, taking guns and money. Then they drove to Florida and when the Cadillac began to have problems in Lake City, they decided to steal another vehicle.

They confronted Gayheart, a community college student, on April 27, 1994, as she loaded groceries into her blue Ford Bronco, according to court documents. They forced her into the vehicle at gunpoint and drove off. They raped her in the backseat and then took her out of the vehicle and tried to strangle her before shooting her twice in the back of the head, court filings say. They dragged her body several dozen yards from the road and drove off.

The two men were arrested in Mississippi the next day after a shootout with police.

A jury in 1995 convicted Wainwright of murder, kidnapping, robbery and rape and unanimously recommended that he be sentenced to death.

Wainwright’s lawyers had filed multiple unsuccessful appeals over the years based on what they said were problems with his trial and evidence that he suffered from brain damage and intellectual disability.

Once his execution was scheduled, his lawyers argued in state and federal court filings that his execution should be put on hold to allow time for courts to hear additional legal arguments in his case.

In a filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, his lawyers argued that his case was “marred by critical, systemic failures at virtually every stage and through the signing of his death warrant.” Those failures include flawed DNA evidence that wasn’t disclosed to the defense until after opening statements, erroneous jury instructions, inflammatory and inaccurate closing arguments and missteps by court-appointed lawyers, the filing says.

The filing also said that a jailhouse informant who testified at Wainwright’s trial finally admitted last month that he and another informant had testified in exchange for lighter sentences, a fact that had not been disclosed to the defense.

The Supreme Court on Monday denied Wainwright’s final appeals without comment.

David, Gayheart’s sister, said she felt cheated that Hamilton died before the state could execute him.

She said she was “overcome with emotion” when she heard the governor had signed a death warrant for Wainwright. Her parents both died while waiting for justice to be served, she said.

“There’s nothing that would keep me from seeing this all the way through,” she said.

Her sister loved animals and surprised her by training to become a nurse rather than a veterinarian, David said. Gayheart was two years younger than her sister but became a mother first, and David said she marveled at her sister’s patience with her young children.

“She was here, she mattered, she should be remembered, and she was loved,” David said of her sister.

Over the years, she has kept a book where she put every court filing, from the initial indictment through the latest appeals.

“I’m looking forward to getting the last pieces of paperwork that say he’s been executed to put into the book and never having to think about Anthony Wainwright ever again,” David said.

Kate Brumback, The Associated Press