STARK, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of raping and murdering a woman near Central Florida Bar is scheduled to be executed Tuesday.
Thomas Lee Gudinas, 51, is due for a fatal injection at the Florida State Jail near Stark, except for a last day’s resignation. He was convicted of the murder of Michelle McGrath in May 1994.
Gudinas will be the seventh person in Florida this year, with the eighth scheduled for next month. The state executed six people in 2023, but last year only one execution was carried out.
A total of 23 men have been executed in the US this year, with the most planned executions in 2025 since 2015.
Florida executed more people this year than any other state, while Texas and South Carolina each placed fourth and second. Alabama executes three, Oklahoma kills two, Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana and Tennessee each have one. Mississippi is scheduled to join other states on Wednesday with its first execution since 2022.
McGrath was last seen at a bar called Barbarella on May 24, 1994, before 3am. Her body was discovered hours later in evidence of serious trauma and sexual assault in an alley next to a nearby school.
Gudinas was at the same bar as his friend the night before, but they later testified that he had left without him. School employees who discovered McGrath’s body later identified Gudinas as a man who had fled to the area some time ago. Another woman also identified Gudinas as the person who chased her into her car the night before and threatened to assault her.
Gudinas was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995.
Gudinas’ attorneys have appealed to the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
The lawyers argue that the state exempts Gudinas from dying, including evidence related to “lifelong mental illness.” The Florida Supreme Court last week refused to appeal, finding that case law protecting people with intellectual disabilities from enforcement does not apply to individuals with other forms of mental illness or brain damage.
Meanwhile, the federal filing argues that the free discretion to sign the Florida governor’s death warrant violated the death row inmate’s constitutional right to the legitimate process, leading to an arbitrary process that determines who lives and who dies. The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet announced its decision.
