The state of Florida executed 74-year-old Harold Gene Lucas at 6:18 p.m. Tuesday by a three-drug lethal injection. He was convicted of the 1976 murder of his 16-year-old girlfriend and the attempted murder of her two friends.
He shared no last words, according to witnesses of the execution.
Lucas’ execution is the 14th in Florida this year and the 42nd carried out under Gov. Ron DeSantis. Last year, the state set a record of 19 executions within a year. Florida has now executed 139 individuals since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
The crime
In the early hours of the morning of Aug. 14, 1976, 24-year-old Lucas fatally shot Jill Piper at her home in Bonita Springs, Florida. Lucas also shot her two friends, 19-year-old Richard Byrd Jr. and 17-year-old Terri Rice.
Lucas and Piper had an on-and-off relationship for roughly two to three years. In the days prior to the crime, they had been arguing, and it was testified they both made threats against each other, according to the statement of facts.
Piper called the police on Lucas multiple times, causing officers to pull him over to search his car for drugs. At the time, Lucas was under the influence of drugs and alcohol daily.
The night of the crime, Lucas hosted a party and snorted PCP, an illegal hallucinogen. He left to purchase beer and was pulled over for a traffic violation. While there were two beers missing from the six-pack, Lucas had no slurred speech and appeared to be coherent, so the officer didn’t perform any sobriety tests.
He took another dose of PCP sometime after that. Multiple witnesses reported he appeared high after the second dose.
That evening, Piper invited her friends, Byrd and Rice, to stay the night because she was scared Lucas would come to her house.
Piper and Rice went to move the car to the other side of the street, so if Lucas came around, it would look like no one was home. Byrd stayed by the house, carrying a handgun, and Piper carried a shotgun they’d found under her parents’ bed.
Lucas was beside the house when Piper and Rice walked back from the car. He shot Piper with a rifle, and Rice and Byrd ran into a bedroom in the house, where they called the police.
After the initial attack, the house was silent. Lucas then entered the bedroom and shot Bryd and Rice, who both survived.
Piper’s autopsy revealed Lucas had shot her seven times, one being a fatal shot to the top of her head. Cuts on her hands suggested she’d tried to defend herself.
The punishment
During his trial, Lucas blamed the muder and attempted murders on the drugs and alcohol he’d consumed. He also said he wished they’d never happened.
It was ruled Lucas suffered no mental illness and knew right from wrong, according to court documents.
Lucas was sentenced to death five times before the verdict was finalized. A change in judges in 1985 caused a new sentencing. The Florida Supreme Court reopened the case in 1990 because it found the sentencing orders weren’t clear.
DeSantis signed his death warrant July 30, and Lucas waived his remaining appeals the following day during his first case management meeting.
“I’ve been on death row for 50 years,” Lucas said at the meeting. “I have no desire to carry this any further.”
The day of the execution
Members of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church traveled from Daytona Beach, Florida, to gather outside Florida State Prison in Raiford. They were joined by Florida for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Florida residents attending the protest.
The protesters set up lawn chairs and sat together, praying and singing religious songs. Some held signs that read, “Why do we kill people who kill people to show killing is wrong?” and “Thou shall not kill.”
Five minutes before the lethal injection, they set up a bell and took turns ringing it with a hammer while saying, “Not in my name.”
Linda Cofelice, a 74-year-old member of the church who lives in Ormond Beach, Florida, has attended many of the executions. She said witnesses of the death penalty have told the church parishioners they could hear the bell ringing, and that's one of the reasons she continues to come.
“It’s weird because you come to one of these, and the person is alive, and then when you leave, they’re dead,” Cofelice said. “So it’s like going to a pre-funeral, almost.”
She said the death penalty only serves vengeance, not justice.
Caleb Chapman has been to a few executions. The 49-year-old works in the financial industry near Orlando, Florida, and got off work just in time to arrive at the protest. Still wearing his tie, dress shirt and slacks, he said he feels in his heart that executions are wrong.
“I think in today’s age, there’s really no threat to the common good of society by allowing them [prisoners] to live out their lives behind bars,” Chapman said. “I think we take it too far when we decide to end someone’s life in that name of protecting the common good of society.”
The Rev. Philip Egitto leads protesters in worship during each execution. During Tuesday’s protest, he prayed for Lucas, his victims and their families. He also spoke about continuing to stand against the death penalty.
“We cannot become numb because another warrant has been signed,” Egitto told protesters. “We cannot convince ourselves that our voices do not matter simply because the killing continues.”
On the other side of the lawn stood two supporters of the death penalty: Piper’s cousins, Mary Dyer and Ralph Warriner. The execution room, where press and the victims’ families are allowed in, was full, they said, so they had to sit outside.
“I’m happy it’s finally coming to an end,” Warriner said. “My family’s waited long enough to get some closure for the justice.”
Warriner was 7 years old at the time of the murder. Dyer, his mother, was 25.
Terri Rice’s sister, Janice Rice, attended the execution alongside her brother. Janice said her sister lived with trauma for 44 years after the attempted murder and murder of her friend. Terri has since died, but her sister said she would have wanted to bear witness.
“Jill is remembered,” she said. “[She] and our sister Terri are finally at rest.”
Jill Piper’s brother, Lester Piper, also known as Buck, attended the execution. Buck was asked at the press conference to comment about Lucas having no last words.
“He just had the same cocky attitude he had 50 years ago,” he said during the conference.
Buck described Jill as a big animal lover. He could have seen her pursuing a career that allowed her to work with animals, like veterinary medicine.
“She was the best friend that I had,” he said.
David Piper, another of Jill's brothers, witnessed the execution. He still checks each lock on the doors three times before going to sleep, he said. People protest the executions because the person executed didn’t impact their family, he added.
Buck was the one who had to identify their sister’s body, David said, and his brother hasn’t been the same since. No one in the family was ever the same, he added.
“It wasn’t their life that was changed forever,” David said.
Contact Teia Williams at twilliams@alligator.org. Follow her on X @teia_williams.
Teia Williams is a journalism senior at UF and the Fall 2026 criminal justice reporter. This is her fourth semester with The Alligator. If she isn't writing an article, you can find her a concert, reading a book or somewhere soaking up the sun.
