Man convicted of killing a traveling salesman becomes first person executed in Florida this year

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of killing a traveling salesman he and his brother had met at a bar has become the first person executed in Florida this year.

Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. Tuesday following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Heath was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon and other charges in the 1989 killing of Michael Sheridan.

When the curtain to the execution chamber went up at the scheduled 6 p.m. start time, Heath was already strapped down with an IV inserted in his arm. Asked by the warden if Heath had any final statement, he said, ”I’m sorry. That’s all I can say. Thank you.”

As the drugs were being administered, Heath showed little outward reaction, closing his eyes and then appearing to fall asleep before becoming motionless. A medic was called in about 8 minutes after the drugs began, and Heath was declared dead 2 minutes after that.

It was the state’s first execution of 2026 and followed a record 19 executions in Florida last year. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976. The previous Florida record was eight executions set in 2014.

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According to court records, Heath and his brother Kenneth Heath met Sheridan at a Gainesville bar in May 1989. After hanging out at the bar for some time, the three men agreed to go somewhere else to smoke marijuana.

At some point, the brothers plotted to rob the other man, investigators said. Ronald Heath drove the group to a remote area, where Kenneth Heath pulled a handgun on Sheridan. The man initially refused to give the brothers anything, and Kenneth Heath shot Sheridan in the chest.

As Sheridan emptied his pockets, Ronald Heath began kicking the man and stabbing him with a hunting knife, prosecutors said. Kenneth Heath then shot Sheridan twice in the head.

The brothers dumped Sheridan’s body in a wooded area and returned to the Gainesville bar to take items from his rental car, according to the court record. It said the brothers made multiple purchases with Sheridan’s credit cards the next day at a Gainesville mall.

Ronald Heath was arrested several weeks later at his home in Douglas, Georgia, after investigators connected him to the stolen credit cards. Officers recovered clothing purchased with the stolen cards, as well as Sheridan’s watch, according to court records.

Kenneth Heath was also charged with Sheridan’s murder, but was sentenced to life in prison as part of a plea agreement.

The Florida Supreme Court denied appeals filed by Ronald Heath last week. His attorneys had argued that Florida corrections officials had mismanaged its own death penalty protocols, that the state’s secretive clemency process blocked due process, that Heath’s incarceration as a juvenile stunted his brain development and that jurors did not recommend the death penalty unanimously.

On Tuesday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Heath’s appeal.

A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions each that year.

Two more Florida executions have already been scheduled for later this month and next month. Melvin Trotter, 65, is scheduled to die on Feb. 24, and the execution of Billy Leon Kearse, 53, is set to follow exactly a week later on March 3.

All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.

David Fischer, The Associated Press