(Miami) An American, nicknamed “the ninja killer”, was executed Wednesday evening in Florida more than thirty years after committing a double murder during a burglary.
Louis Gaskin’s execution took place at 6:15 p.m. (6:15 p.m. Eastern Time), Florida prison officials said in a statement.
The Supreme Court had rejected the final appeal of this 56-year-old death row inmate.
On December 20, 1989, he had committed bloody burglaries dressed entirely in black – hence his nickname in the American media – in order to steal Christmas presents for his girlfriend.
Armed with a rifle, he had gone to the winter residence of a couple in their fifties from New Jersey. According to court documents, he first fired through the window, fatally hitting the husband and wounding his wife. He then chased and shot her.
Louis Gaskin had stolen a few items, cash and jewelry from this house and had gone to a second home, where he renewed his attack. There was injured a man, who had however managed to flee in the car with his wife.
Arrested ten days later thanks to information provided by a relative, he had confessed to the crimes.
At his trial, a jury found him guilty of murder. But only eight of the twelve jurors had voted in favor of the death penalty. Today, it takes a unanimous jury to pronounce the death penalty, but that was not the case then.
In the following years, his lawyers brought numerous appeals, arguing in particular numerous psychiatric problems.
In 1991, the Florida Court of Appeal had recognized that he suffered from schizophrenic disorders and auditory hallucinations, while judging him aware of the seriousness of his acts and therefore criminally responsible.
His other appeals were no more successful, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the warrant last month setting his execution date.
The elected Republican, who has presidential ambitions, had supervised only two executions during his first term, but has signed three such terms since the beginning of the year.
Noreen Rector, survivor of the second burglary, was moved. “I don’t believe the death penalty serves any purpose,” she wrote in a statement to the Daytona-Beach News-Journal.
Louis Gaskin’s execution would “disturb me greatly if it served Governor DeSantis’ presidential quest,” she added.
Since the beginning of the year, 10 convicts have been executed in the United States, in just four states (five in Texas, two in Missouri, two in Florida and one in Oklahoma).