Death Penalty News

Florida executes man convicted of killing college student, raping victim’s sister in national forest  A Florida man convicted of killing a college freshman and raping the murder victim’s older sister while the siblings camped in a national forest 30 years ago was executed Thursday.  Loran Cole, 57, received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 6:15 p.m. at Florida State Prison for the 1994 killing of the 18-year-old student. Cole also was serving t2life sentences for rape.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of killing a college freshman and raping the student's sister while the siblings camped in a national forest 30 years ago is scheduled to be executed Thursday. Loran Cole is set to be put to death just after 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison for the 1994 killing. Cole is also serving two life sentences for rape.  The U.S. Supreme Court denied Cole's final appeal earlier Thursday.

ORLANDO  |  In its 111-year history, investigations and former students accounts have chronicled how the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys both in Marianna and Okeechobee were not so much a reform school but rather a place where physical, sexual and mental abuse was rampant.  In June, Gov. Ron DeSantis quietly signed a bill — without any press present and with only a handful of Dozier survivors and three representatives who sponsored HB 21 — in which the state will divide $20 million in compensation between those who attended the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in North Florida between 1940 and 1975, as well as the Okeechobee School. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis on July 29 signed a death warrant for Loran Cole  Attorneys for condemned killer Loran Cole have asked the Florida Supreme Court for a stay of his scheduled Aug. 29 execution, saying the state's lethal-injection procedures likely would cause "needless pain and suffering" because of Cole's symptoms from Parkinson’s disease. 

On July 29, 2024, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the state’s first execution warrant of 2024, scheduling an execution date for Loran Cole in just thirty days, on August 29, 2024. Mr. Cole’s execution warrant comes nearly ten months after Florida’s last execution, which was the last of the state’s six executions carried out in 2023.