Florida executes Billy Kearse

Florida executes man who killed Fort Pierce police officer during 1991 traffic stop

Moments before receiving a lethal injection, Billy Kearse asked for forgiveness from the family of Danny Parrish, whose widow said she found peace after a "long, long 35 years.”

A man convicted of fatally shooting a police officer with his own service weapon during a traffic stop was executed Tuesday evening, becoming the third person put to death by Florida this year after a record 19 executions in 2025.

Billy Leon Kearse, 53, was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was condemned for the 1991 shooting death of Fort Pierce police Officer Danny Parrish.

The execution started just after 6 p.m. When a warden asked Kearse if he had any final words, he said all he could do was ask for forgiveness from Parrish's family.

“To his family, I sincerely apologize for what I’ve done," Kearse said. "There is no way I can ever repay that.”

More than a dozen family members and police officers gathered to observe the execution.

Kearse twitched briefly after the lethal drugs began entering his system but stopped moving several minutes later. It was another quarter of an hour before a medic entered the room and pronounced Kearse dead.

After the execution, Parrish’s widow, Mirtha Busbin, said she has found peace.

“It’s been a long, long 35 years,” said Busbin. “We didn’t win anything though; we lost another life, but we did get justice.”

Busbin, who works as a victim advocate for the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office, said she didn’t expect Kearse to apologize, but she did appreciate it.

“I can forgive him. I can move on,” Busbin said. “It was the right thing to do.”

The crime

Court records show Parrish had pulled over Kearse for driving the wrong way on a one-way street in January 1991. After Kearse couldn’t produce a valid driver’s license, Parrish ordered Kearse out of his vehicle and attempted to handcuff him when a struggle ensued.

Kearse grabbed Parrish’s firearm during the struggle and fired 14 times, striking the officer nine times in the body and four times in his body armor, prosecutors said.

A taxi driver heard the shots and called for help on the officer's radio, but Parrish died after being rushed to a hospital. Police used license plate information called in by Parrish during the traffic stop to arrest Kearse at his home.

Kearse was initially convicted of first-degree murder and robbery with a firearm and sentenced to death in 1991.

The Florida Supreme Court later found the trial court failed to give jurors certain information about aggravating circumstances and ordered a new sentencing. Kearse again drew the death penalty in 1997.

Protest

Protesters gathered in the rain outside Florida State Prison on Wednesday as the state moved forward with the execution of Billy Kearse.

The vigil, held along the highway leading to the facility, served as a final plea for clemency from activists and community members.

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) released a formal statement Tuesday night condemning the scheduled execution. The organization argued that the state's reliance on the death penalty serves as a "failed policy" that provides no measurable increase in public safety.

"The execution of Billy Kearse does not bring justice; it only continues the cycle of violence that our legal system should be seeking to end," the statement read. FADP advocates emphasized that resources currently spent on capital litigation and executions would be better utilized in supporting victims' families and funding crime prevention programs.

The protest in Raiford is part of a broader, statewide effort by the group to abolish capital punishment in Florida, which remains one of the most active death penalty states in the country.

Florida's busy death chamber

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, far outpacing Alabama, South Carolina and Texas which each held five executions last year. The 19 Florida executions that year outstripped the previous high totals of eight in both 1984 and 2014.

Besides the three Florida executions to date this year, Texas and Oklahoma have each executed one person each so far in 2026.

Two more Florida executions are scheduled soon, starting with Michael Lee King on March 17 for the 2008 kidnap and killing of a mother of two. Former police officer James Duckett is set to be executed March 31 for the 1987 killing of an 11-year-old girl.

All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

Hours before Tuesday’s execution, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Kearse’s final appeal without comment. And last week, the Florida Supreme Court denied appeals filed by Kearse.

— Kearse becomes the 3rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Florida and the 128th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on May 25, 1979. Only Texas (597) and Oklahoma (130) have carried out more executions since the July 2, 1976 US Supreme Court decision of Gregg v Georgia allowed states to start re-sentencing people to death after a 4-year moratorium on executions.

— Kearse becomes the 5th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,659th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977, when Gary Gilmore was shot to death in the Utah State Penitentiary.

Source: wusf.org, Staff, March 3, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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