Kayle Bates is set to be executed in Florida Tuesday for the 1982 murder of Janet Raenee White. Photo by Florida Department of Corrections
A Florida death row inmate is set to be executed for the murder of a young woman four decades ago on Tuesday.
Kayle Barrington Bates’ execution is taking place at 6 p.m. EDT at the Florida State Prison in Raiford, as he was convicted in 1982 for the murder of Janet Renee White.
“This has just been hanging out there for 43 years,” said Randy White, Renne White’s husband, when he told the media that justice has been delayed for far too long. “At least this part I can put behind me and not think of it again. I can be done with it.”
Randy White found out his wife had been murdered on June 14, 1982, when he received a phone call in the afternoon after dropping her off for work.
“They called and said ‘There has been an emergency, you need to call her boss and I called like four times,” White said as he tells the story of that afternoon. “Nobody would answer the phone, so I drove back to Lynn Haven, and as I was driving down 77 where it happened, I could see probably at least 25 police cars.”
He attempted to get near the scene, asking where his wife was, when a sheriff’s office chaplain sat him in his car to tell him his wife had been murdered.
“Mr. White, I don’t know any way to put this to you, he said, but your wife has been murdered.” White recalled.
Bates had broken into her office and “brutally beat” Renee, strangling her, stabbing her twice, and attempting to rape her, according to court records.
When police arrived, they found Bates covered in blood. He was then convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
Bates’ court case was originally in 1983, where he was sentenced to death. He appealed and was moved on and off death row.
Bates will become the fourth veteran executed in Florida this year after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed their death warrants.
“We can never be a veteran-friendly state when our leader is signing off on their deaths at the hands of the State,” according to a letter signed by 130 veterans that argued for a reprieve for Bates. “We urge you now to lead from a place of bravery, to return to the honor code from your service, and to stop setting the executions of our fellow soldiers.”
Randy and Renee met in a pizza parlor as teenagers and married shortly after.
“She walks in the door, and I mean the second she walked in, I can still remember what I said. ‘Who the heck is that young lady?'” Randy recalled. “She was gorgeous.”
“We were completely crazy about each other,” Randy said. “Like flipped upside-down crazy.”
“There’s been so many deaths in her family, and I thought I would pass and never see justice,” he said as he gets ready to witness Bate’s execution. “It’s going to be different to start life new again without this in the forefront … But I’ll never get past it. I will fight that until my last breath.”
This will be the 10th execution in Florida and the 29th in the U.S. for 2025.
