Overview
- Authorities administered a lethal injection to Wainwright, 54, at Florida State Prison near Starke and pronounced him dead at 6:22 p.m. on June 10, 2025.
- The U.S. Supreme Court declined without comment to review his last appeals, which alleged trial flaws such as undisclosed DNA evidence and improper jury instructions.
- Wainwright was convicted in 1995 for the April 1994 abduction, rape and killing of 23-year-old Carmen Gayheart, along with accomplice Richard Hamilton, after escaping a North Carolina prison.
- Richard Hamilton, who was also sentenced to death for his role in Gayheart’s murder, died on Florida’s death row in January 2023.
- Maria David, Gayheart’s sister, said the decades-long appeals process forced her family to repeatedly relive the tragedy but that they now await closure.