Miami (AFP) – A man sentenced to death for murder in the state of Florida was executed late Tuesday, one of two executions in the United States this week. Thomas Gudinas, 51, was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6:00 pm (2200 GMT) at the Florida State Prison in Raiford. Thirteen minutes later, the Florida Department of Corrections confirmed in a statement that the execution had been carried out.
Gudinas was sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder of Michelle McGrath, who was last seen leaving a bar in the city of Orlando in the early hours. McGrath’s battered body was found the next day and Gudinas was arrested shortly afterwards. Florida has carried out more executions—seven—than any other US state so far this year.
Meanwhile, a Mississippi man on Death Row for 49 years is to be executed by lethal injection at 6:00 pm Central Time (2300 GMT) Wednesday, at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. Richard Jordan, 79, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1976 for the murder of Edwina Marter, the wife of a bank executive in the town of Gulfport. Jordan, a shipyard worker, kidnapped Marter from her home and demanded a $25,000 ransom. He was apprehended when he went to pick up the money.
Jordan confessed to murdering Marter and led the authorities to her body, which had been hidden in a forest. She had been shot. The execution in Mississippi will be the first in the southern state since December 2022.
There have been 24 executions in the United States this year: 19 by lethal injection, two by firing squad, and three by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate. The use of nitrogen gas as an execution method has been denounced by United Nations experts as cruel and inhumane.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others—California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania—have moratoriums in place. President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment, and on his first day in office called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”
© 2024 AFP
