Ronald Heath, 64, was executed by the state of Florida on Tuesday evening. Photo courtesy Florida Department of Corrections/Website
Florida has executed a 64-year-old man for the 1989 murder of a traveling salesman, the state’s first execution and the nation’s second of the year.
Ronald Heath was administered a three-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke on Tuesday evening and was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. EST, the state’s Department of Corrections said in a statement.
Though Heath is Florida’s first execution of 2026, his death follows a record-setting 2025 in which the Sunshine State put 19 death row inmates to death, accounting for 40% of the 47 executions carried out nationwide that year.
Heath was executed for the May 24, 1989, murder of Michael Sheridan in Gainesville, Fla.
His execution was conducted after the Supreme Court denied his petition for a stay on the grounds that state officials have maladministered the lethal injection protocol, including using expired drugs, incorrect dosages, among other concerns, during its 19 executions last year.
On Jan. 23, after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Heath’s death warrant, his lawyers submitted a habeas petition with the Florida Supreme Court, arguing his death sentence was disproportionate relative to the life sentence his younger brother, Kenneth Heath, received for the same crime.
They also argued that Florida’s clemency secrecy rules blocked them from pursuing due process claims, that his Eighth Amendment rights were violated by his death sentence because of his traumatic prior incarceration stunted his brain development and that the jury recommended his death sentence in a unanimous vote.
The state’s high court denied his final petitions.
Court records state he and his younger brother met Sheridan at the Purple Porpoise Lounge in Gainesville. After Sheridan asked the brothers if they had any marijuana, the brothers plotted to rob the salesman.
Prosecutors said the trio drove from the bar to an isolated area of Alachua County, where they got out of the vehicle and smoked marijuana.
According to the court documents, Kenneth pulled a small-caliber handgun on Sheridan, who balked at being robbed. Sheridan then lunged at Heath. Kenneth pulled the trigger.
Sheridan, wounded, sat on the ground and removed his possessions. Court documents state Heath then kicked and stabbed Sheridan in the neck with a dull hunting knife.
Kenneth then shot Sheridan twice in the head. Both brothers were indicted for first-degree murder and armed robbery, but Kenneth entered a plea deal and agreed to testify against his older brother and received life imprisonment with eligibility for parole after 25 years.
Heath was convicted in November 1990 and sentenced to death.
His younger brother is now eligible for parole.
A vigil was held by anti-death penalty activists earlier Tuesday, protesting Heath’s execution.
Floridans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty argued in a statement released after Heath was pronounced dead that the man was executed “for a murder he did not commit,” calling his younger brother “the undisputed trigger man.”
“Tonight, Florida killed a man for a death he did not cause and in doing so created several more murder victims’ family members. And these new victims will never see their loved one’s killer brought to ‘justice,'” the group said.
Heath’s execution comes two weeks after Texas conducted the United States’ first execution of 2026, killing Charles Victor Thompson on Jan. 28 for the 1998 double murder of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 15 more death row inmates are scheduled for execution this year, including Kendrick Simpson who is scheduled to die Thursday in Oklahoma.
