Florida sets execution date for man who raped and murdered his former manager at a convenience store

A man convicted of raping and fatally beating his former manager Florida The convenience store owner is scheduled to be executed in November under a death warrant signed Tuesday republican Governor Ron DeSantisWhich is setting record speed in death sentence.

Richard Barry Randolph, 63, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Nov. 20 at a Florida state prison. Randolph will be the 17th person to be executed in Florida in 2025. DeSantis has carried out more executions in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight hangings.

DeSantis signed the death warrant a week before the scheduled execution of Norman Merle Grimm Jr. on October 28. Another convicted murderer, Brian Frederick Jennings, is scheduled to die on November 13.

Randolph was convicted of murder, armed robbery, sexual assault and grand theft and sentenced to death in 1989.

According to court records, Randolph attempted to break into the safe in August 1988 at the Handy-Way convenience store in Patna, where he previously worked. Randolph was spotted by manager Minnie Ruth McCallum and the two began to struggle. Randolph beat, strangled, stabbed and raped McCallum before leaving the store and taking the woman’s car.

Three women saw Randolph leave the store and saw through the window that the store was in disarray and called the sheriff’s office. A deputy responded and found McCallum still alive. According to doctors, he was taken to the hospital in a coma and died six days later due to severe brain injuries.

Randolph was arrested immediately after the attack. jacksonville According to deputies, lottery tickets were stolen from a convenience store while trying to borrow money from a grocery store. Investigators said Randolph confessed to the attack and showed them bloodstained clothes that he had thrown away.

Randolph’s lawyers are expected to file appeals with the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

So far 39 people have been hanged in America in 2025. Florida leads the way in a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. The state’s most recent execution was the October 14 lethal injection of Samuel Lee Smithers, convicted of murdering two women whose bodies were left in a rural pond.