Florida on Thursday executed Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., the man convicted in a 1990s southwest Florida killing that became part of the so-called “Hog Trail Murders,” the Associated Press reported.

Conahan, 72, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. after a three-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, according to WUSF’s AP write-up. He had been sentenced to die for the 1996 kidnapping and strangling of Richard Allen Montgomery, whose mutilated body was found in a wooded Charlotte County area where authorities recovered remains of at least six people over roughly three years.

Conahan maintained his innocence and argued the case against him was circumstantial. Authorities identified him as a person of interest in other Hog Trail deaths but never charged him in those cases. He waived a jury and was convicted by a judge of murder and kidnapping in August 1999.

The Florida Supreme Court last week denied his final state appeals, including a bid for more DNA testing; the court said even other DNA on the victim would not exonerate him. The U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal on Thursday, AP reported.

The execution was Florida’s 15th of 2026. AP noted Florida has carried out more than half of the 25 U.S. executions so far this year under Gov. Ron DeSantis, who leaves office in January. Another Florida execution — Curtis Wilkie Beasley, 77 — is scheduled for Sept. 29.

Capital punishment is the hardest power a state claims: irreversible, expensive, and easy to politicize. Thursday’s facts are narrower. A court-imposed sentence was carried out after decades of appeals; Florida remains the nation’s busiest death chamber this year. Readers can argue the moral case either way — the ledger of who dies, and how often, is now public record again.

Sources