Death Penalty News

Florida executes a man for the shotgun killings of his girlfriend and her 3 young children  An Army combat veteran whose Gulf War experience triggered severe mental problems was executed Thursday evening in Florida for the 1998 shotgun slayings of his girlfriend and her 3 young children. Jeffrey Hutchinson, 62, was pronounced dead at 8:15 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was the 4th person executed this year in the state under death warrants signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, with a 5th execution set for May 15.

Jeffrey Hutchinson is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Florida on May 1, 2025, despite a long­stand­ing men­tal ill­ness and his attorney’s claim that he is men­tal­ly incom­pe­tent.  On April 24, 2025, attor­neys for the Gulf War vet­er­an filed a motion in Bradford County Circuit Court seek­ing a stay of his sched­uled exe­cu­tion and request­ing an evi­den­tiary hear­ing to assess their client’s com­pe­ten­cy. Mr. Hutchinson has suf­fered from a delu­sion­al dis­or­der for decades, with a per­sis­tent delu­sion that his exe­cu­tion is meant to silence his expo­sure of gov­ern­ment secrets, includ­ing the iden­ti­ty of the actu­al per­pe­tra­tors in his case.