Florida Executes Man in 1989 Murder Case

Ronald Palmer Heath, a 64-year-old man convicted in the 1989 murder of a traveling salesman during a robbery, became the first person executed in Florida this year. Heath was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. Tuesday following a three-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke.

Court records detail how Heath and his brother Kenneth met Michael Sheridan at a Gainesville bar in May 1989. The three men spent time drinking before agreeing to leave for a remote area in Alachua County to smoke marijuana. Investigators said the brothers had plotted to rob Sheridan. Ronald Heath drove the group to the isolated spot, where Kenneth Heath drew a handgun and demanded valuables. Sheridan initially resisted, prompting Kenneth to shoot him in the chest. As Sheridan complied and emptied his pockets, Ronald Heath kicked him and stabbed him repeatedly with a hunting knife, prosecutors said. Kenneth then fired two more shots into Sheridan's head. The brothers dumped the body in a wooded area, returned to the bar to remove items from Sheridan's rental car, and used his credit cards for purchases at a Gainesville mall the next day.

Ronald Heath was arrested weeks later at his home in...