Overview
- Richard Knight was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. Thursday after receiving a three‑drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison, the governor’s office said.
- Knight was convicted in 2006 of stabbing Odessia Stephens and her daughter Hanessia Mullings to death in Coral Springs in June 2000 and was sentenced to death on two counts of first‑degree murder.
- The Florida Supreme Court rejected Knight’s recent appeals last week, including claims about a previously disclosed unidentified fingerprint on a knife and challenges to execution procedures, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied a last appeal hours before the execution.
- Florida’s Department of Corrections said the three‑drug protocol used a sedative, a paralytic and a heart‑stopping drug and reported no complications during the procedure; defense lawyers had previously raised procedural and warrant‑process objections.
- Knight’s execution is the seventh carried out by Florida so far in 2026 after a record 19 executions in 2025, and the state has another execution scheduled for June 2, a trend that is reshaping how capital punishment is carried out and reviewed in Florida.