Florida plans to execute Lee County resident Harold Gene Lucas, now 74, for the murder of 16-year-old Jill Piper and the attempted murder of her two friends, a crime that dates back to August 13, 1976. Governor Ron DeSantis signed Lucas’s death warrant on Thursday, scheduling the lethal injection for 6 p.m. on September 1 at Florida State Prison in Starke.
Back in the summer of ’76, Lucas and Piper’s relationship had already turned volatile. Investigators said the couple argued for weeks, and Lucas threatened to kill her. That night in Bonita Springs, he showed up at her house with a rifle. He shot at her and her friends in the yard. Piper, wounded but still alive, managed to get inside. Lucas followed and shot her several more times. Her friends made it into the house, too, called 911, and hid in a bedroom.
Lucas faced trial in February 1977. The jury found him guilty of murder and attempted murder and recommended the death penalty. Although an appeal overturned his original sentence and the case underwent several re-sentencings, the Florida Supreme Court reaffirmed his death sentence in 1992. Since then, Lucas has filed additional appeals, all denied.
Florida has ramped up executions. Last year, the state put 19 inmates to death. DeSantis has already overseen 12 executions in 2026, more than all other states combined, according to the Associated Press. Like Lucas, many death row inmates in Florida have spent decades waiting for their sentences to be carried out. Dominick Anthony Occhicone, executed this Tuesday at age 80, was the second-oldest person to receive a lethal injection in modern history.
Governor DeSantis said the time for waiting is over. “Some of these crimes were committed in the 80s, and they wait, and there’s appeal and this and that. And there’s a saying, justice delayed is justice denied,” he told reporters last year.
