Miami (AFP) – A Florida man was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday for the rape and murder of the mother of two young children, the Department of Corrections said. Michael King, 54, was sentenced to death in 2009 for the killing the previous year of 21-year-old Denise Lee, who was abducted from her home in North Port. Lee’s sons were two years old and six months old at the time of her kidnapping. They were unharmed.
The Florida Department of Corrections said King’s execution was carried out at 6:13 pm (2213 GMT) at the state prison in Raiford. Seven executions have been carried out in the United States this year — four in Florida, two in Texas, and one in Oklahoma. There were 47 executions in the United States last year, the most since 2009, when 52 people were put to death. Florida carried out the most executions in 2025, with 19, followed by Alabama, South Carolina, and Texas, where there were five each.
Thirty-nine of last year’s executions were carried out by lethal injection. Three were by firing squad and five by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate. The use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment 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 has called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”
© 2024 AFP
