Florida executes Andrew Richard Lukehart

Jacksonville man who killed his girlfriend’s 5-month-old baby in 1996 executed 30 years later

A Jacksonville man who confessed to killing his girlfriend’s 5-month-old daughter and throwing her body in a pond 3 decades ago was executed on Tuesday evening. 

Andrew Richard Lukehart, 53, was scheduled to receive a 3-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. 

He was sentenced to death after being convicted of aggravated child abuse and felony murder in the death of Gabrielle Hanshaw. The baby’s mother told News4JAX she plans to attend the execution.

According to court records, Lukehart was watching his girlfriend’s baby in February 1996 while his girlfriend was caring for her older daughter, who had been ill. 

The girlfriend said that she heard Lukehart driving away from their Jacksonville home in her car, and then she couldn’t find baby Gabrielle. 

Lukehart called his girlfriend about 30 minutes later and told her to call police because the baby had been kidnapped and he was chasing the kidnapper. 

Later that evening, Lukehart was found in a neighboring county after driving his car off the road. 

During questioning the next day, Lukehart admitted to investigators that the kidnapping story was a lie and that Gabrielle was dead. 

He said, at first, that she died after he dropped her on her head and then shook her. He told police that he panicked and threw the baby in a pond. 

Law enforcement officers searched the pond and found the child’s body. 

The medical examiner said Gabrielle had suffered five blows to the head, including 2 that caused skull fractures. 

In his final appeals, Lukehart’s attorneys claimed that the medication he was taking for kidney disease could have a negative reaction with the lethal injection drugs. They also argued that having only a month between the signing of Lukehart’s death warrant and the execution deprived him of his due process. 

The Florida Supreme Court denied those appeals last week, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Lukehart’s final appeal on Monday. 

Protestors on sight

People who were against Lukehart’s execution gathered on Tuesday to protest his death. In a statement after Lukehart’s death, the group, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, emphasized the lasting grief that Hanshaw’s family would experience while criticizing the death penalty. 

Tonight, We, the People of the State of Florida, executed Andrew Lukehart. His murder of five-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw was horrific, and it remains an open wound for her family and loved ones. Indeed, the loss of a child is always tragic. We mourn for Gabrielle, and we lament the circumstances that led to her death. 

Today, news stories will recount the facts of Gabrielle’s death in graphic detail. They will explain how she died and how Andrew killed her. But those facts are not suddenly more important today than they were yesterday. Andrew has been incarcerated for nearly three decades. Had he received a life sentence rather than a death sentence, there would be no statewide media coverage, no breaking news alerts, and no public debate about whether he deserved to live or die. He would have remained in prison until his natural death, largely forgotten by the public. 

Gabrielle’s family could have spent the intervening years cherishing who she was, how much she was loved, and who she could have been. Instead, Andrew’s death sentence has repeatedly dragged them back to the tragedy that took her life. This is just one of the many cruelties of the death penalty. 

It is impossible to meaningfully talk about Gabrielle’s death without also talking about the life of Andrew Lukehart. Andrew’s own life had been shaped by years of violence, abuse, neglect, and disregard for his humanity. Recognizing that reality does not diminish the loss of Gabrielle Hanshaw. It helps explain how such a tragedy became possible in the first place. 

What Andrew did when he was 22 years old was a tragedy. It was also the act of a profoundly damaged young man who had grown up surrounded by severe physical and sexual abuse, violence, instability, intellectual limitations, and untreated trauma. Long before Gabrielle’s death, Andrew struggled with depression, hopelessness, and a deep sense of worthlessness rooted in the very people who were supposed to love and protect him. His frustrated actions were those of a person who was ill-equipped to manage an infant and incapable of handling the profound responsibility of caring for a child. 

Overcome with guilt, despair, and horror at what he had done, he attempted to take his own life by driving his vehicle into a tree. Officers placed him under Florida’s Baker Act. Then, Andrew led law enforcement to Gabrielle’s body and acknowledged responsibility for her death. When the case went to trial, he testified that although he did not intend to kill Gabrielle, he alone was to blame. 

During his trial, jurors heard the details of this crime and weighed them against the reality of Andrew’s life leading up to his actions in 1996. Three of them concluded that he could be held accountable and safely housed in prison for the rest of his life. They believed that death was not necessary. Those jurors were right. 

Over the course of his 26 years on death row, Andrew settled into the rhythmic routine of prison life. And, over the past 18 months, he watched as Florida’s pace of executions accelerated and man after man was taken from the wing and executed. When his own death warrant was signed, Andrew turned to the men around him and thanked them for being his friends. He then called his beloved aunt, knowing the news of his impending death would break her heart, and assured her that he was going to be okay. 

Andrew formed deep and meaningful relationships with the religious volunteers who walked alongside him during his years on death row. His Catholic faith was a constant source of strength, comfort, and dignity, and the guidance of his spiritual advisors sustained him as he faced the reality of his execution. In his final moments, as the State carried out its sentence, his priest stood beside him, laid hands on him, and prayed. 

In this case, the death penalty is equivalent to closing the barn door after the horse has already left. Andrew spent decades in prison. He no longer posed a threat to anyone. Accountability had been achieved. The State of Florida had another option available to it. Instead, another tragedy has been added to a story that already contained far too much suffering. 

Executions in Florida

This was Florida’s eighth execution so far this year, following a record 19 executions in 2025. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with 8 executions.

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 DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for 2nd with 5 executions each. 

Another execution is planned in Florida later this month. Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, was convicted of fatally stabbing his wife in 1992. 

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

— Lukehart becomes the 8th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Florida, and the 133rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment on May 25, 1970. Only Texas (600) has carried out more executions since the US Supreme Court allowed states to resume capital punishment via its July 2, 1976 Gregg v Georgia decision. 

— Lukehart becomes the 15th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA, and the 1,669th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. 

Source: The Associated Press, Staff; Rick Halperin, June 2, 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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