Gulf War vet Jeff Hutchinson executed for family's murder; veterans say combat broke him

Yahoo

02-05-2025

Florida has executed Gulf War veteran Jeffrey Hutchinson for the shooting deaths of his girlfriend and her three children despite a letter from 129 veterans arguing that Hutchinson's mind was a casualty of war.
The 62-year-old former U.S. Army Ranger was convicted for the 1998 murder of 32-year-old Renee Flaherty, and her three children: 9-year-old Geoffrey, 7-year-old Amanda, and 4-year-old Logan.
The execution took place shortly after 8 p.m. ET on Thursday at the Florida State Prison in Railford using the state's three-drug protocol involving etomidate, rocuronium bro­mide and potassium acetate. It marked the fourth execution in Florida this year and the 15th in the nation.
While Hutchinson himself has maintained that the murders were committed by home invaders, his defense team pointed to brain damage and trauma suffered by the former U.S. Army Ranger during his service in the Gulf War as reason to stop the execution.
Maria DeLiberato, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives for the Death Penalty and liaison for Hutchinson's legal team, previously told USA TODAY that experts called Hutchinson's statements "a delusional belief based on his significant and severe mental illness."
Meanwhile 129 veterans representing every branch of the military wrote to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, calling Hutchinson "one of us" and urging the governor to stop the execution.
Here's what you need to know about the execution, including what the veterans had to say.
On the night of Sept. 11, 1998, Hutchinson fought with Flaherty, after which he packed some of his clothes and guns into his truck, and went to a bar, according to court records.
The bartender testified that Hutchinson told him that Flaherty was angry with him, while other witnesses testified that he drove recklessly when he left, according to court documents.
Hutchinson then returned to the Crestview home, "busted down" the front door and shot Flaherty, Amanda and Logan in the head in the master bedroom, a forensic pathologist testified − according to court documents.
The pathologist testified that Hutchinson shot Geoffrey last in both the chest and the head while the child "was able to see the bodies of his mother, sister, and brother," according to court records.
"The terror suffered in that moment is incomprehensible to this court," Hutchinson's trial judge said, according to the Associated Press.
Hutchinson called the police and told a dispatcher: "I just shot my family." Police arrived to find him spattered with blood and lying in a daze on the garage floor, still holding the phone, according to court documents.
Renee Flaherty did her best to provide for her three children.
Even though there wasn't always "much on the shelves," the rural mail carrier and single eastern Washington mom worked hard to put food on the table and loved her children dearly, her brother, Wesley Elmore previously told USA TODAY.
"Her kids were a priority. She made sure that her kids were fed and took care of," Elmore said.
The last time Elmore saw his sister, just before Thanksgiving in 1997, he felt the family was in "good hands" with Hutchinson as they prepared to move to Florida.
"I was giving Renee and the kids a hug and everything, goodbyes," Elmore told USA TODAY. "I remember shaking Jeff's hand and I said, 'Take care of my sister and her kids,' And he says, 'Wes, I promise I will.'"
Months later, the 32-year-old Flaherty and her children would be found dead in their home, and Hutchinson was spattered with blood and lying in a daze on the garage floor, according to court documents.
In their April 30 letter to DeSantis, the veterans arguing for Hutchinson to be spared said that he "served our nation with honor from 1986 to 1994 as both a Paratrooper and an Army Ranger, roles that demand elite training, unshakable discipline, and extraordinary sacrifice."
"He fought in some of the most dangerous missions during the Gulf War, operating behind enemy lines in the volatile Four Corners region where Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq meet," they continued. "He was exposed to repeated concussive blasts and deadly chemicals, including sarin nerve gas released during coalition bombings, leading to permanent brain damage and Gulf War Illness, a condition that was not fully recognized when he returned home."
When Hutchinson got back home, "instead of receiving care, Jeff was met with silence." They added: "The science was not there. The VA was not there. His government was not there."
They said they weren't asking DeSantis to excuse Hutchinson's crime but to "recognize the undeniable truth: Jeff came home injured by war. His mind was a casualty, just like any limb lost in combat."
"To execute him now is not justice," they continued. "It is a failure of responsibility. It is the final abandonment of someone our country broke and then left behind."
DeSantis' office did not immediately respond to a request about the veterans' comments.
At the time of Hutchinson's trial, psychiatrist William Baumzweiger found that Hutchinson's form of mental illness could result in unconscious fits of rage, the Tampa Bay Times reported. Baumzweiger concluded that possible exposure to chemical or biological weapons caused Hutchinson to suffer from a "diminished mental state" at the time of the murders.
Hutchinson's trial judge rejected that, instead agreeing with two prosecution psychologists and saying that no correlation between Hutchinson's diagnosis and the murders had been established, reported the Lakeland Ledger, part of the USA TODAY Network.
In sentencing Hutchinson to death, Florida Circuit Judge G. Robert Barron found that 9-year-old Geoffrey's death was particularly heinous because he was alive and wounded in the chest when he was killed with a head shot, the Associated Press reported at the time.
"The terror suffered in that moment is incomprehensible to this court," Barron said. "The defendant walked over to that 9-year-old boy and without pity, and without conscience, aimed the shotgun one final time."
In the Florida Supreme Court's decision rejecting Hutchinson's arguments this week, the judges said that "there is no credible evidence that in his current mental state Mr. Hutchinson believes himself unable to die or that he is being executed for any reason other than the murders he was convicted of by a jury of his peers."
The lone dissenting justice, Jorge Labarga, wrote that the case had a "procedural path unlike any in recent history" and was in favor of a stay.
Contributing: Amanda Lee Myers, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Florida executes Gulf War vet Jeffrey Hutchinson for quadruple murders