By Freida Frisaro
Associated Press
STARKE, Fla. — A person convicted of fatally taking pictures a police officer together with his personal service weapon throughout a visitors cease was executed Tuesday night in Florida, turning into the third individual put to demise by the state this yr after a file 19 executions in 2025.
Billy Leon Kearse, 53, was pronounced lifeless at 6:24 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison close to Starke. He was condemned for the 1991 taking pictures demise of Fort Pierce Police Officer Danny Parrish.
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The execution began simply after 6 p.m. When a warden requested Kearse if he had any ultimate phrases, he stated all he may do was make an apology from Parrish’s household.
“To his family, I sincerely apologize for what I’ve done,” Kearse stated. “There is no way I can ever repay that.”
More than a dozen members of the family and law enforcement officials gathered to watch the execution.
Kearse twitched briefly after the deadly medication started getting into his system however stopped shifting a number of minutes later. It was one other quarter of an hour earlier than a medic entered the room and pronounced Kearse lifeless.
After the execution, Parrish’s widow, Mirtha Busbin, stated she has discovered peace.
“It’s been a long, long 35 years,” stated Busbin. “We didn’t win anything though; we lost another life, but we did get justice.”
Busbin, who works as a sufferer advocate for the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office, stated she didn’t count on Kearse to apologize, however she did recognize it.
“I can forgive him, I can move on,” Busbin stated. “It was the right thing to do.”
Court information present Parrish had pulled over Kearse for driving the improper means on a one-way road in January of that yr. After Kearse couldn’t produce a legitimate driver’s license, Parrish ordered Kearse out of his car and tried to handcuff him when a battle ensued.
Kearse grabbed Parrish’s firearm through the battle and fired 14 instances, hanging the officer 9 instances within the physique and 4 instances in his physique armor, prosecutors stated. A taxi driver heard the pictures and referred to as for assistance on the officer’s radio, however Parrish died after being rushed to a hospital. Police used license plate data referred to as in by Parrish through the visitors cease to arrest Kearse at his house.
Kearse was initially convicted of first-degree homicide and theft with a firearm and sentenced to demise in 1991. The Florida Supreme Court later discovered the trial courtroom failed to offer jurors sure details about aggravating circumstances and ordered a brand new sentencing. Kearse once more drew the demise penalty in 1997.
A complete of 47 folks had been executed within the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the best way with a flurry of demise warrants signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, far outpacing Alabama, South Carolina and Texas which every held 5 executions final yr. The 19 Florida executions that yr outstripped the earlier excessive totals of eight in each 1984 and 2014.
Besides the three Florida executions up to now this yr, Texas and Oklahoma have every executed one individual every thus far in 2026.
Two extra Florida executions are scheduled quickly, beginning with Michael Lee King on March 17 for the 2008 kidnap and killing of a mom of two. Former police officer James Duckett is ready to be executed March 31 for the 1987 killing of an 11-year-old woman.
All Florida executions are carried out by way of deadly injection utilizing a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the center, based on the Department of Corrections.
Hours earlier than Tuesday’s execution, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Kearse’s ultimate enchantment with out remark. And final week, the Florida Supreme Court denied appeals filed by Kearse.
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