A Florida man convicted of raping and killing a woman 30 years ago after kidnapping her from a Winn-Dixie parking lot is set to be executed on Tuesday.
Anthony Wainwright, 54, is scheduled for a lethal injection Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison in Raiford, Florida.
Wainwright was found guilty of the April 1994 murder of 23-year-old Carmen Gayheart, and the jury unanimously recommended that he be sentenced to death, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE.
According to court documents, in April 1994, Wainwright and his crime partner, Richard Hamilton, escaped from a North Carolina prison, stole guns and a car, and drove to Florida.
On April 27, 1994, the pair held Gayheart, a young mother or two, at gunpoint while she loaded groceries into her car.
They stole her car and drove off with Gayheart. Wainwright and Hamilton raped Gayheart in the backseat and attempted to strangle her before shooting her twice in the back of the head, according to the documents.
Wainwright and Hamilton were arrested the next day in Mississippi after a shootout with police, according to court documents.
The United States Supreme Court denied several of Wainwright’s appeals and confirmed that he will be executed on Tuesday, around 6 p.m., as per his death warrant signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Gayheart’s sister, Maria David, told the Associated Press that they had waited far too long for justice. “It’s ridiculous how many appeals they get,” David told the publication. “You have to relive it again because they have to tell the whole story again.”
David told the Associated Press that she became “overcome with emotion” when the governor signed Wainwright’s death warrant. Both of her parents died while waiting for Wainwright to be sentenced to death; she intends to be present on the day of his execution.
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David told the outlet that she wants her sister to be remembered and that others know she is loved.
“There’s nothing that would keep me from seeing this all the way through,” she told me. “I’m looking forward to getting the final pieces of paperwork proving he was executed to include in the book and never having to think about Anthony Wainwright again.”
Wainwright will be the sixth person executed in Florida this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
