Who is Anthony Wainwright, the Florida man set to be executed for a 1994 rape and murder?
Anthony Wainwright, a 54-year-old
Florida
death row inmate, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Tuesday at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of the 1994 abduction,
rape
, and
murder
of 23-year-old
Carmen Gayheart
, a mother of two, in Lake City.
Wainwright would become the sixth person executed in Florida this year, matching the number carried out in 2023. His execution is one of four scheduled across the U.S. this week.
Wainwright and his accomplice, Richard Hamilton, had escaped from a North Carolina prison in April 1994. After stealing a car and burglarizing a home, the pair drove to Florida. When their stolen Cadillac broke down in Lake City, they targeted Gayheart in a supermarket parking lot.
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According to court records, the men forced Gayheart into her Ford Bronco at gunpoint, raped her in the backseat, and later attempted to strangle her before shooting her twice in the head. Her body was dragged several yards off the road. The two were arrested the next day in Mississippi after a shootout with police.
A Florida jury convicted Wainwright in 1995 of murder, rape, kidnapping, and robbery, recommending a death sentence. Hamilton, who was also sentenced to death, died in prison in January 2023.
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Wainwright's attorneys have spent decades challenging his conviction and sentence, citing alleged brain damage, intellectual disability, and multiple trial irregularities. Their most recent appeals included claims of suppressed DNA evidence, improper jury instructions, misleading prosecution arguments, and unreliable jailhouse informant testimony. However, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Wainwright's final appeals on Monday without comment.
Carmen Gayheart's sister, Maria David, plans to witness the execution. 'Three decades is too long to wait for justice,' she told the Associated Press. 'You have to relive it again and again with each appeal.'
David said her sister, who was studying to become a nurse, was a patient and loving mother who deserved to be remembered.
'She was here, she mattered, she was loved,' David said. 'I've kept every court filing in a book. Now I'm waiting to add the final page—the one that says he's been executed.'
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