Richard Knight is scheduled to be executed by the State of Florida for the murder of a mother and her daughter
According to court documents Richard Knight was living with Odessia Stephens and her four year old daughter Hanessia Mullings. When Knight was asked to move out of the home he responded by stabbing them both to death
Richard Knight would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Richard Knight was executed on May 21 2026
Richard Knight Execution News
A Florida death row inmate is scheduled to be executed Thursday as his attorneys ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review legal claims tied to his sentence and the state’s execution procedures.
Richard Knight, 47, is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. May 21. Knight was convicted of the 2000 murders of Odessia Stephens and her 4-year-old daughter, Hanessia Mullings, in Broward County.
This would be the seventh execution in Florida this year, and the 35th under Gov. Ron DeSantis. Florida carried out 19 executions in 2025, approximately 40% of the national total.
On Monday, Knight’s attorneys filed a petition for writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in his case, arguing that Florida continues to uphold death sentences imposed under an unconstitutional sentencing scheme
In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hurst v. Florida that Florida’s capital sentencing scheme violated the Sixth Amendment by allowing judges, rather than juries, to determine whether a defendant was eligible for the death penalty.
Following that decision, Florida courts drew a line at the date of another U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2002. People whose death sentences became final after 2002 were denied relief, despite being sentenced under the same unconstitutional framework.
Knight’s petition argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should fully enforce its ruling in Hurst by requiring resentencing for all individuals sentenced under Florida’s former capital sentencing scheme, including Knight.
Knight’s attorneys also filed a separate petition for writ of certiorari challenging a portion of Florida’s lethal injection protocol under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
The petition argues that a provision of the state’s lethal injection protocol violates the Eighth Amendment by authorizing the execution team to perform a venous cutdown inside the death chamber at Florida State Prison without the use of local anesthesia.
According to the filing, the procedure carries risks including severe pain, catastrophic bleeding, collapsed lungs, air embolism, and the possibility of paralysis while conscious if improperly performed. Knight’s attorneys argue that Florida’s execution chamber is not equipped to handle serious surgical complications and that the state’s execution procedures remain shrouded in secrecy.
Florida utilizes a three-drug execution protocol consisting of a short-acting sedative, a paralytic, and a chemical intended to cause cardiac arrest.
Florida’s internal records reveal a pattern of noncompliance with the state’s written execution procedures. According to those records, the Department of Corrections has used expired execution drugs, prepared incorrect or incomplete drug dosages, administered drugs not authorized by its own protocol, and failed to document what drugs were used, in what quantities, and when.
The records also show the department recorded drug removals days after executions occurred and failed to keep contemporaneous logs for critical steps in the execution process.
In recent filings before the Florida Supreme Court, Knight’s attorneys revealed that investigators recovered a usable unidentified fingerprint from the blade of a bloody knife connected to the murders.
Trial testimony established that the print was suitable for identification purposes and did not match Knight, the victims, or any known individual associated with the case.
Prosecutors recently conceded there was no testimony of when any of the bloodstains or any of the prints were made.
Knight’s attorneys asked the courts to require the Broward Sheriff’s Office to run the unidentified print through the national Automated Fingerprint Identification System.
Florida is the only executing state in which the governor holds sole authority to sign death warrants and grant clemency, without binding oversight from an independent body.
Florida death row inmate scheduled for execution Thursday as attorneys appeal to Supreme Court
Richard Knight Execution May 21 2026
A Florida man convicted of fatally stabbing his cousin’s girlfriend and the couple’s 4-year-old daughter was put to death Thursday evening, the seventh person executed by the state this year.
Richard Knight, 47, was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Knight was convicted of first-degree murder in the June 2002 killings of Odessia Stephens and the couple’s daughter, Hanessia Mullings.
When the death chamber curtain went up at the scheduled 6 p.m. execution time, Knight was already strapped down with arms extended and an IV line in place. Asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Knight said, “I want to give thanks to Yahweh, who is the most high.”
The execution began immediately afterward. Knight closed his eyes and barely moved as the drugs began flowing. After about 10 minutes, a medic was called in and Knight was declared dead.
Florida’s seventh execution of the year followed a record 19 executions in the state in 2025. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was eight in 2014. And all told, a total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025.
According to court records, Knight had been living in Coral Springs, near Fort Lauderdale, with his cousin, his cousin’s girlfriend and their daughter in 2000. Knight and Stephens frequently argued about Knight living there. One evening while Knight’s cousin was at work, Stephens told Knight he would have to move out the next morning. Knight became angry and stabbed Stephens multiple times and then attacked the young girl, the records show.
Hans Mullings, who was Stephen’s boyfriend and the father of the 4-year-old, told reporters after witnessing Thursday’s execution that his family still grieves the loss.
“The pain never leaves,” Mullings said. “We love them still, and we can’t stop loving them. We miss them a lot.”
Stephen’s sisters and mother didn’t attend the execution, but provided a statement expressing closure.
“Words cannot express the profound sense of peace and finality we feel today,” it said. ”While this does not fill the empty space in our hearts, the closing of this long, painful chapter allows us to fully focus on honoring the beautiful lives of Odessia and Hanessia.”
“Richard, may our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ grant you the mercy you failed to give our loved ones whom you so brutally took from us that night,” the statement added.
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Knight’s final appeal without comment.
That came shortly after the planned execution of a Tennessee inmate, Tony Carruthers, was called off. Tennessee officials said a team quickly established Carruthers’ main IV line for a lethal injection but couldn’t find a suitable vein for a backup line required under the state’s execution protocol. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee later announced the state would not try again for at least a year to execute Carruthers, who was convicted of killing three people.
Also this week, an Arizona prisoner convicted of killing another man by throwing gasoline at him and lighting a match was put to death Wednesday. Leroy Dean McGill, 63, received a lethal injection at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence for the death of Charles Perez, who was attacked at a north Phoenix apartment in 2002.
Florida, meanwhile, is preparing to conduct another execution on June 2. Andrew Richard Lukehart, 53, was convicted of fatally beating of his girlfriend’s infant daughter in 1996. All Florida executions are by lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, officials say.
Man convicted of killing a woman and her 4-year-old daughter is executed in Florida
