STARKE, Fla. — A man convicted of abducting a woman from a Florida Panhandle insurance office and killing her was executed Tuesday evening.
Kayle Bates, 67, was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke under a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. It was the 10th death sentence carried out by the state of Florida in 2025, extending the state record for executions in a single year. Two more executions are planned within the next month
Alex Lanfranconi, a spokesman for DeSantis, said Bates said "no" when asked if he had any final words just before the drugs began flowing.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, the highest previous annual total of Florida executions was eight in 2014. Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, while Texas and South Carolina are tied for second place with four each.
Bates was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and attempted sexual battery in the June 14, 1982, killing of Janet White in Bay County in the Florida Panhandle. Bates abducted White from the insurance office where she worked, took her into some woods behind the building, attempted to rape her, stabbed her to death and tore a diamond ring from one of her fingers, according to court documents.
Attorneys for Bates filed appeals with the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as a federal lawsuit claiming DeSantis' process for signing death warrants was discriminatory. The lawsuit was recently dismissed by a judge who found problems with the lawsuit's statistical analysis.
The Florida Supreme Court recently denied Bates' pending claims, including arguments that evidence of organic brain damage had been inadequately considered during his second penalty phase. The court ruled Bates has had three decades to raise these claims. And on Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Bates' last appeals to block the execution.
With Tuesday's execution, a total of 29 men had died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and at least nine other people were scheduled to be put to death in seven states during the remainder of 2025.
Curtis Windom, 59, is set to become the 11th person executed in Florida on Aug. 28. He was convicted of killing three people in the Orlando area in 1992.
David Pittman, 63, would be the 12th person executed in Florida if his death sentence is carried out as scheduled Sept. 17. He was found guilty of fatally stabbing his estranged wife's sister and parents at their Polk County home before setting it on fire in 1990.
Florida executions are carried out using a three-drug lethal injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state Department of Corrections.
The Department of Corrections said Bates awoke at 5:15 a.m. Tuesday and had three visitors, his daughter, his sister and his brother-in-law. He declined a last meal and did not meet with a spiritual adviser, department spokesman Ted Veerman said.
