Andrew Lukehart, who was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend’s infant daughter in 1996, faced execution on June 2.
RAIFORD, Fla. — After spending nearly three decades on death row, a Jacksonville man has been executed in Florida.
The Florida Supreme Court dismissed Andrew Lukehart’s last appeal for a stay of execution, paving the way for his death by lethal injection. The 53-year-old was executed at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 2, at the Florida State Prison in Raiford, and was declared dead at 6:19 p.m.
In a crime that shocked the community, Lukehart brutally assaulted his girlfriend’s 5-month-old daughter, Gabrielle Hanshaw, delivering at least five blows to her head. He initially fabricated a story about her abduction before ultimately leading law enforcement to her remains in a swampy area. At the time of the murder, Lukehart was on probation for a 1994 child abuse conviction involving another girlfriend’s 8-month-old daughter, who suffered multiple fractures including to her skull, arm, ribs, and leg.
The advocacy group Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty highlighted evidence presented during Lukehart’s trial, which painted a grim picture of his upbringing in an environment riddled with abuse, alcoholism, violence, sexual abuse, mental illness, and significant loss. This background was compelling enough that three jurors opted for a life sentence rather than the death penalty.
With his execution, Lukehart becomes the eighth death row inmate to be executed in Florida in 2026 and the 36th under Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration. This includes Michael Bell from Jacksonville, who was executed last year.
In Gabrielle’s case, Lukehart told police she was abducted from his car after he parked at a convenience store on Normandy Boulevard. He said he was walking toward the store when he heard a noise and turned to see someone fleeing with the baby in a blue Blazer.
He said he chased the Blazer until crashing off County Road 217 in Clay County. As many as 50 officers from Jacksonville and Clay County along with K-9 units, a helicopter and dive team searched the woods and several ponds. Police grew suspicious of Lukehart’s story because it changed several times, and he finally led them to her after about 15 hours into the search.
His girlfriend Misty Rhue had said Lukehart told her a stranger in a blue Blazer kidnapped Gabrielle from their home while he was throwing away a diaper. She said he took off after the abductor and called her saying he was chasing the Blazer.
Lukehart didn’t deny killing the baby during his testimony but said it was an accident. His attorney said if he was guilty of anything, it was negligent manslaughter and not premeditated, a requirement for a first-degree murder conviction.
“There is nothing negligent about five blows to a baby’s head,” then Assistant State Attorney Angela Corey Lee countered.
Jurors found him guilty as charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse. In a 9-3 vote, they chose to punish him with death. Florida law later changed the requirement for execution to be a unanimous jury recommendation. That requirement was rescinded in 2023 when the state ruled an 8-4 jury recommendation was sufficient.
This story was first published by our news partners at the Florida Times-Union.
