STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of raping and killing a woman near a central Florida bar was executed Tuesday evening.
Thomas Lee Gudinas, 51, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, said Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Gudinas was convicted of the May 1994 killing of Michelle McGrath.
When the curtain to the execution room opened at 6:00 p.m., Gudinas was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his left arm. Then, after the warden got off the phone with the governor’s office, he asked Gudinas if he wished to make a statement. Although Gudinas' words were inaudible to those in the viewing room, Griffin said the inmate repented and made a reference to Jesus.
The drugs were then administered, and the inmate's eyes began to roll back and he underwent slight chest convulsions. After several minutes, he started to lose color in his face and fell still. The prison warden subsequently announced that the sentence had been carried out and the curtain to the execution chamber closed and witnesses were led from the viewing area.
Gudinas was the seventh person put to death in Florida this year, with an eighth scheduled for next month. The state also executed six people in 2023, but only carried out one execution last year.
A total of 24 men have been put to death in the U.S. this year, with scheduled executions set to make 2025 the year with the most executions since 2015.
Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, while Texas and South Carolina are tied for second place with four each. Alabama has executed three people, Oklahoma two, and Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana and Tennessee each have one. Mississippi is set to join the other states on Wednesday with its first execution since 2022.
Despite the increased frequency of executions this year, Department of Corrections spokesman Ted Veerman said there’s been no significant operational strain.
“Our staff are doing a fantastic job keeping up with the pace of these executions,” Veerman said hours earlier Tuesday. “And we are going through with these in a professional manner.”
McGrath was last seen at a bar called Barbarella’s shortly before 3 a.m. on May 24, 1994. Her body, showing evidence of serious trauma and sexual assault, was found several hours later in an alley next to a nearby school.
Gudinas had been at the same bar with friends the night before, but they all later testified that they had left without him. A school employee who found McGrath’s body later identified Gudinas as a man who was fleeing the area shortly beforehand. Another woman also identified Gudinas as the person who chased her to her car the previous night and threatened to assault her.
Gudinas was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995.
Attorneys for Gudinas had filed appeals with the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court but those were rejected.
The lawyers had argued in their state filing that evidence related to “lifelong mental illnesses” exempts Gudinas from being put to death. The Florida Supreme Court denied the appeals last week, ruling that the case law that shields intellectually disabled people from execution does not apply to individuals with other forms of mental illness or brain damage.
Separately, a federal filing argued that the governor's unfettered discretion to sign death warrants violates death row inmates' constitutional rights to due process and had led to an arbitrary process for determining who lives and who dies. The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Gudinas' request for a reprieve.
Officials said Gudinas had one visitor, his mother, during the day Tuesday and did not meet with a spiritual adviser.
Frisaro reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
This image provided by the Florida Department of Corrections shows Thomas Lee Gudinas, who is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke on Tuesday, June 24, 2025. He was convicted in the May 1994 killing of Michelle McGrath. (Florida Department of Corrections via AP)
FILE - Clouds hover over the entrance of the Florida State Prison in Starke, Fla., Aug. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Curt Anderson, file)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian drones blasted apartment buildings and the power grid in the southern Ukraine city of Odesa in an overnight attack that injured six people, including a toddler and two other children, officials said Wednesday.
Four apartment buildings were damaged in the bombardment, according to regional military administration head Oleh Kiper. Power company DTEK said two of its energy facilities suffered significant damage. The company said that 10 substations that distribute electricity in the Odesa region were damaged in December alone.
Russia has this year escalated its long-range attacks on urban areas of Ukraine. In recent months, as Russia’s invasion of its neighbor approaches its four-year milestone in February, it has also intensified its targeting of energy infrastructure, seeking to deny Ukrainians heat and running water in the bitter winter months.
From January to November this year, more than 2,300 Ukrainian civilians were killed and more than 11,000 were injured, the United Nations said earlier this month. That was 26% higher than in the same period in 2024 and 70% higher than in 2023, it said.
Russia’s sustained drone and missile attacks have taken place against backdrop of renewed diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting.
U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Florida resort on Sunday and announced that a settlement is “closer than ever before." The Ukrainian leader is due to hold talks next week with the heads of European governments supporting his efforts to secure acceptable terms.
The ongoing attacks, meantime, are inflaming tensions.
The overnight Odesa strikes “are further evidence of the enemy’s terror tactics, which deliberately target civilian infrastructure,” Kiper, the regional head, said.
Moscow has alleged that Ukraine attempted to attack Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in northwestern Russia with 91 long-range drones late Sunday and early Monday. Ukrainian officials deny the claim and say it’s a ruse to derail progress in the peace negotiations.
Maj. Gen. Alexander Romanenkov of the Russian air force claimed Wednesday that the drones took off from Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernihiv regions.
At a briefing where no questions were allowed, he presented a map showing the drone flight routes before they were downed by Russian air defenses over the Bryansk, Tver, Smolensk and Novgorod regions.
It was not possible to independently verify the reports.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, on Wednesday called the Russian allegations “a deliberate distraction” from the peace talks.
“No one should accept unfounded claims from the aggressor who has indiscriminately targeted Ukraine’s infrastructure and civilians since the start of the war,” Kallas posted on X.
Zelenskyy said Wednesday that Romania and Croatia are the latest countries to join a fund that buys weapons for Ukraine from the United States. The financial arrangement, known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL, pools contributions from NATO members, except the United States, to purchase American weapons, munitions and equipment.
Since it was established in August, 24 countries are now contributing to the fund, according to Zelenskyy. The fund has so far received $4.3 billion, with almost $1.5 billion coming in December alone, he said on social media.
Ukraine’s air force said Wednesday that Russia fired 127 drones at the country during the night, with 101 of them intercepted by air defenses.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said that 86 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight over Russian regions, the Black Sea and the illegally annexed Crimea peninsula.
The Ukrainian attack started a fire at an oil refinery in Russia's southern Krasnodar region, but it was quickly put out, local authorities said.
This story has corrected the day of the alleged Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian president’s residence to late Sunday and early Monday.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following a Russian attack in Odesa, Ukraine, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this image made from video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2025, a Russian Army soldier fires from D-30 howitzer towards Ukrainian positions in an undisclosed location in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
