Florida executes Richard Knight, seventh death this year in record pace

Florida carried out its seventh execution of the year on Thursday evening, keeping the state on a record pace that has turned capital punishment into one of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ clearest criminal-justice markers. Richard Knight, 47, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. after a three-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke.

Knight had been convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the killings of Odessia Stephens and her daughter, Hanessia Mullings, in Coral Springs. Court records say the confrontation began after Stephens told Knight he would have to move out of the apartment where he was living with his cousin and her child. Prosecutors said Stephens suffered 21 stab wounds, and records described Mullings’ injuries as including multiple stab wounds and signs consistent with strangulation.

The execution came after years of appeals. Knight was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to death in 2007. The Florida Supreme Court upheld his conviction and sentence in 2011 and later denied postconviction relief in 2017. His death also marked the eighth death warrant DeSantis signed in 2026, underscoring how quickly the state has moved through executions this year.

Florida has now surpassed the previous annual execution record it set in 2014, when eight people were executed, and it already carried out 19 executions in 2025, the most in a single year since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. With another execution scheduled for June 2 in a separate case, the state remains on pace to widen that gap and continue leading the nation in executions.

DeSantis has defended the surge as a way to bring justice and closure to victims’ families. Opponents say the speed reflects something different: a governor exercising wide discretion over who dies and when. Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty has criticized the pace and the lack of transparency around executions, while Bishop Emeritus Felipe J. Estevez of St. Augustine has argued that human dignity is inviolable, even for people convicted of violent crimes.

The broader scrutiny now surrounding Florida’s death chamber has also reached the state’s lethal-injection procedures, with defense lawyers in other cases raising concerns about drug protocols and IV access. Knight’s death, and the executions still pending behind it, have made Florida’s capital-punishment system a central test of how far the state is willing to push that machinery.