STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of raping and killing a woman near a bar in central Florida was scheduled to be executed Tuesday evening.
Thomas Lee Gudinas, 51, was set to receive a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke for the May 1994 killing of Michelle McGrath.
Gudinas would be the seventh person put to death in Florida this year, with an eighth scheduled for next month. The state also executed six people in 2023, but only carried out one execution last year.
A total of 23 men have been put to death in the U.S. this year with scheduled executions set to make 2025 the year with the most executions since 2015.
Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, while Texas and South Carolina are tied for second place with four each. Alabama has executed three people, Oklahoma two, and Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana and Tennessee each have one. Mississippi is set to join the other states on Wednesday with its first execution since 2022.
Despite the increased frequency of executions this year, Department of Corrections spokesman Ted Veerman said there’s been no significant operational strain.
“Our staff are doing a fantastic job keeping up with the pace of these executions,” Veerman said Tuesday. “And we are going through with these in a professional manner.”
McGrath was last seen at a bar called Barbarella’s shortly before 3 a.m. on May 24, 1994. Her body, showing signs of serious trauma and sexual assault, was found several hours later in an alley next to a nearby school.
Gudinas had been at the same bar with friends the night before, but they all later testified that they had left without him. A school employee who found McGrath’s body later identified Gudinas as a man who was fleeing the area shortly beforehand. Another woman also identified Gudinas as the person who chased her to her car the previous night and threatened to assault her.
Gudinas was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995.
Gudinas woke up at 4:45 a.m. Tuesday, a Department of Corrections spokesman said. He had one visitor, his mother. He did not meet with a spiritual adviser.
For his last meal, Gudinas had pepperoni pizza, fries and a soda, officials said.
Attorneys for Gudinas have filed appeals with the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
The lawyers argued in their state filing that evidence related to “lifelong mental illnesses” exempts Gudinas from being put to death. The Florida Supreme Court denied the appeals last week, ruling that the case law that shields intellectually disabled people from execution does not apply to individuals with other forms of mental illness or brain damage.
Meanwhile, a federal filing argues that the Florida governor’s unfettered discretion to sign death warrants violates death row inmates’ constitutional rights to due process and has led to an arbitrary process for determining who lives and who dies. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday afternoon denied Gudinas’ application for a stay of execution.
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Frisaro reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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