Florida executes Richard Knight for 2000 murders of woman, daughter

by · UPI

May 21 (UPI) -- Florida death row inmate Richard Knight was executed Thursday, 26 years after murdering a pregnant woman and her 4-year-old daughter, state corrections officials announced.

Knight, 47, died by lethal injection at 6:13 p.m. EST at Florida State Prison in Raiford, Fla., officials said in an issued statement.

Knight was sentenced to death on two counts of premeditated first-degree murder in 2007 for the June 27, 2000, slayings of Odessia Stephens and her daughter, Hanessia Mullings, in Coral Springs, Fla.

Prosecutors said Stephens was the pregnant girlfriend of Knight's cousin and that she had demanded Knight move out of their home, the USA Today Network reported.

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Knight responded by strangling Stephens and stabbing her 21 times, then likewise strangling and stabbing her young daughter.

It was Florida's seventh execution so far this year with the next -- that of convicted murderer Andrew Lukehart -- set for June 2.

The lethal injection came after the Florida Supreme Court denied an emergency motion to stay the execution filed by Knight's lawyers. The appeal was based on Wednesday's botched execution of Tony Corruthers, who was granted a one-year reprieve by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee when the execution team could not find a vein for the injection.

Following Knight's death, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty said he was executed "despite the presence of unresolved forensic evidence on the murder weapon, despite an execution protocol whose dangers had been demonstrated only hours earlier and despite the fact that he was sentenced to death under a law that the U.S. Supreme Court later ruled unconstitutional."

The state of Florida "moved forward with this execution under the shadow of constitutional failure and deeply troubling execution practices that no civilized society should accept without question," the group said in a statement.