Ronald Palmer Heath, a man convicted of killing a traveling salesman during a 1989 robbery, was executed by lethal injection Tuesday evening in what officials say is Florida's first execution of 2026.
Heath, 64, received a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke after spending more than three decades on death row. He was pronounced dead following the procedure, which used a sedative, a paralytic drug, and a chemical that stops the heart, the standard method for executions in the state.
The execution followed a death warrant signed in January, making his case the first on Florida's calendar this year after the state carried out a record 19 executions in 2025, according to NBC News.
Heath was convicted in 1990 of first-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, and related charges in the killing of traveling salesman Michael Sheridan.
Prosecutors said Heath and his younger brother, Kenneth, met Sheridan at a Gainesville bar in May 1989 and later lured him to a remote wooded area under the pretense of smoking marijuana. Investigators said the brothers planned to rob Sheridan, forcing him to empty his pockets before the attack turned violent.
According to court records, Kenneth Heath pulled a handgun on Sheridan, who was shot after he resisted. Prosecutors said Ronald Heath kicked Sheridan and stabbed him with a hunting knife before his brother fired shots at the victim's head, CBS News reported.
The brothers then dumped Sheridan's body in a wooded area and returned to Gainesville, where they took items from his rental car and used his credit cards at a local mall the next day.
Heath's lawyers had filed postconviction motions in the weeks leading up to the execution, but Florida's courts rejected his latest appeal and allowed the warrant to proceed.
The case drew renewed attention from death penalty opponents, who argued that the crime occurred decades ago and questioned Florida's pace of executions after last year's record. State officials, however, pointed to the jury's verdict and the long history of appeals in defending the decision to carry out the sentence, as per the Washington Times.
