Florida man convicted raping and killing his former supervisor is about to be executed | EUROtoday

A person convicted of raping and fatally beating his former supervisor at a Florida comfort retailer in 1988 is scheduled to be executed Thursday night.

Richard Barry Randolph, 63, is about to obtain a deadly injection beginning at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison close to Starke. Randolph was convicted of homicide, armed theft, sexual battery and grand theft and sentenced to loss of life in 1989.

It can be Florida’s seventeenth loss of life sentence carried out in 2025, additional extending the state file for complete executions in a single yr.

According to court docket data, Randolph tried to interrupt into the protected on the Handy-Way comfort retailer in Palatka, the place he had beforehand labored, in August 1988. Randolph was noticed by the supervisor, Minnie Ruth McCollum, and the 2 started to battle.

Randolph then beat, strangled, stabbed and raped McCollum earlier than leaving the shop and taking the girl’s automotive, the data present.

Three ladies witnessed Randolph leaving the shop and referred to as the sheriff’s workplace after seeing by the window that the shop was in disarray. A deputy responded and located McCollum nonetheless alive. She was taken to a hospital in a coma and died six days later of extreme mind accidents, based on docs.

Randolph was arrested shortly after the assault at a Jacksonville grocery retailer whereas attempting to borrow cash and money in lottery tickets stolen from the comfort retailer, based on deputies. Investigators mentioned Randolph admitted to the assault and directed them to bloody clothes that he had discarded.

The Florida Supreme Court denied Randolph’s appeals final week. He had argued {that a} decrease court docket had abused its discretion in denying him entry to public data and that his personal protection attorneys had acted with out his consent. A ultimate attraction was nonetheless pending earlier than the U.S. Supreme Court.

A complete of 43 males have died by court-ordered execution thus far this yr within the U.S., and greater than a dozen different persons are scheduled to be put to loss of life in the course of the the rest of 2025 and subsequent yr.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the loss of life penalty in 1976, the best earlier annual complete of Florida executions was eight in 2014. Florida has executed extra folks than some other state this yr, adopted by Alabama, South Carolina and Texas with 5 every. Two extra executions are deliberate for subsequent month in Florida below loss of life warrants signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Mark Allen Geralds, 58, is scheduled for Florida’s 18th executiond on Dec. 9. He was convicted of fatally stabbing a lady throughout residence invasion theft.

Frank Athen Walls, 58, is about for Florida’s nineteenth execution on Dec. 18. He was convicted of fatally taking pictures a person and girl throughout residence invasion theft, and he later confessed to 3 different killings.

Florida’s deadly injections are carried out with a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the guts, based on the state Department of Corrections.

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