Florida executed Andrew Richard Lukehart, 53, on Tuesday evening for the 1996 murder of his girlfriend’s 5-month-old daughter, Gabrielle Hanshaw. Lukehart died by lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Raiford after the state Supreme Court rejected his final appeal for a stay of execution, according to First Coast News and USA Today reports.
Lukehart had been on death row for nearly 30 years. In 1996, he struck Gabrielle at least five times in the head, fracturing her skull and killing her, according to trial testimony and court records. He then dumped her body in a nearby body of water and told investigators that someone had abducted her from his car. After a widespread search, he led police to the body, USA Today reported.
At the time of the murder, Lukehart was on probation after pleading guilty to the 1994 beating of a different girlfriend’s 8-month-old daughter. That child suffered a fractured skull and a broken arm, leg and ribs, according to court records. Lukehart served 10 months in jail for that offense.
During his trial for Gabrielle’s murder, Lukehart said he did not intend to kill the baby and that her death was an accident, according to First Coast News. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse and voted 9-3 to sentence him to death.
Florida law later required unanimous jury votes for death sentences, but the legislature revised the law in 2023, allowing non-unanimous death sentences to stand. The change meant Lukehart remained on death row. He had challenged the sentence on the grounds that lethal injection would be cruel and unusual punishment given his kidney disease, USA Today reported.
Lukehart was the eighth person executed in Florida this year and the 15th executed in the United States in 2026, according to published tallies.