STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of killing a teenage girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends was put to death Tuesday in the first of three executions planned this month in Florida.
Harold Gene Lucas, 74, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He had been sentenced to die for the 1976 shooting attack on Jill Piper and the wounding of her friends, Richard Byrd Jr. and Terri Rice.
The curtain of the death chamber went up on schedule at 6 p.m. Lucas was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm. When the team warden asked Lucas if he had any last statement, he responded, “No.”…