Andrew Richard Lukehart, age 53, is scheduled to be executed next Tuesday evening at the Florida State Prison near Starke. Lukehart was convicted in 1997 of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse for the death of Gabrielle Hanshaw, a five-month-old girl, which occurred in 1996. The execution, beginning at 6 p.m. via lethal injection of three drugs, will mark the eighth state execution in 2026.
Details of the 1996 Case
According to court records, the incident occurred in February 1996 in Jacksonville. Lukehart was caring for his partner's daughter while the mother attended to her older child, who was sick. At some point, the couple reported that Lukehart drove away with the baby in his car. Thirty minutes later, Lukehart called his partner to tell her to call the police because the baby had been kidnapped and he was chasing the kidnapper.
Late that night, Lukehart was found in a neighboring county after his vehicle went off the road. During interrogation the following day, he confessed that Gabrielle died after he dropped her on her head and shook her. He admitted that, in a state of panic, he threw the girl's body into a pond. Authorities found the child's body in the pond during the search, as reported by Civic Coast.
Legal and National Context
The Florida Supreme Court denied Lukehart's appeals last week. His lawyers had argued that the medication he took for a kidney disease could have a negative reaction with the lethal injection drugs. They also maintained that having only one month between the signing of the execution order and the execution itself deprived him of due process. The U.S. Supreme Court denied Lukehart's final appeal on Monday.
This execution takes place in a year with significant death penalty activity. Florida led the country in 2025 with a series of execution orders signed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who oversaw more executions in a single year than any other governor since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. The previous record was eight executions in 2014. Nationally, a total of 47 people were executed in 2025, AP News reported.
NEXT STEPS
All executions in Florida are carried out by lethal injection consisting of a sedative, a paralytic, and a medication that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections. Another execution is planned in Florida later this month for Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, convicted of fatally stabbing his wife in 1992. The Lukehart execution continues the state's history of regularly applying the death penalty.
