Death Penalty

More than 30 years after he murdered John Edwards, who was on a camping trip in the Ocala National Forest, Loran Cole was given a lethal injection Thursday evening.

Loran Cole is slated to be executed Thursday for the 1994 rape of a woman and the murder of her brother, Florida State University student John Edwards

The Florida Supreme Court rejected a series of arguments, including claims that Loran Cole was severely abused as a teen at the Dozier School for Boys in Marianna.

Marion County Circuit Judge Robert Hodges last week refused to vacate Loran Cole’s death sentence. He murdered an FSU student 30 years ago in the Ocala National Forest.

Loran Cole, 57, was sentenced to death in the February of 1994 murder of John Edwards in the Ocala National Forest. Cole was 17 when he was sent to Dozier in 1984.

John Edwards was murdered in 1994. Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a death warrant for Loran Cole, who would be the first inmate executed in Florida since October.

Ashley Moody’s office is urging the Florida Supreme Court to use the constitutional amendment to make it harder for Death Row inmates to get stays of execution.

Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a death warrant for Michael Duane Zack, 54, an inmate convicted in the murder of a woman he met in an Escambia County bar.

Darryl Barwick is scheduled for a lethal injection on May 3rd for a murder in Bay County in 1986. Rebecca Wendt was found stabbed to death in her Panama City apartment.

Agreement is needed from only eight jurors for a death penalty recommendation. That’s under a new Florida law signed by Governor Ron DeSantis Thursday.