Loran Kenstley Cole, 57, became the first person to be executed in Florida in 2024, marking the 13th execution this year and the 106th in Florida since the United States Supreme Court’s reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.
This marked the end of a nearly 30-year legal battle, during which Cole's deeply troubled past and childhood were revealed in various appeals before higher courts.
When asked if he had any final words, Cole replied, "No sir.”
On Feb. 18, 1994, Cole, then 27, and William Paul, then 20, encountered Florida State University student John Edwards, 18, and his older sister while they were setting up for a weekend camping trip in the Ocala National Forest. However, the events took a dark turn later that evening when the group went to visit a nearby pond to photograph alligators.
According to court records, before reaching the pond, Cole attacked Edwards’ sister, handcuffing her, while Edwards was overpowered by both men. Paul took the woman further up the path, while Cole remained with Edwards, who died from a slashed throat and several skull fractures.
The following morning, Edwards’ sister, who had been raped multiple times and tied between two trees, managed to free herself by chewing through the rope and was rescued by a passing driver. Authorities later discovered Edwards’ body covered with pine needles and palm fronds.
A year later, William Paul and Loran Cole were convicted of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping and two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon. Paul, who pleaded guilty to his felony charges, was sentenced to life and remains incarcerated in Florida. Cole was convicted of two counts of sexual battery and was sentenced to death.
Gov. DeSantis signed Cole’s death warrant July 29, setting the time and date of Cole’s death to be Aug. 29, 6:00 p.m.
Cole not only maintained his innocence, claiming that he did not kill Edwards and that the murder weapon had contained Paul’s fingerprints on it, but he also argued that the extensive abuse he endured at Dozier’s School for Boys, a reform school in the Florida panhandle, warranted a form of compensation on par with the $20 million other victims of the school received: the vacating of his death sentence.
According to court documents, Cole said during his six-month stay at Dozier, he was raped by a guard, beaten at least twice a week and had both of his legs broken by staff after attempting to escape.
After petitions to the Florida Supreme Court were denied, Cole’s attorneys filed another failed appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Cole’s side argued the case should be returned to a lower court to determine whether the state’s lethal injection procedures would cause undue suffering — Cole has Parkinson’s disease, and the symptoms could affect the placement of intravenous lines due to “involuntary body movements.”
As the state moved forward with its execution Thursday, a fervent group of protestors gathered outside, their voices rising in a collective sermon against the death penalty.
Florida was the first state to reintroduce the death penalty after the Supreme Court struck it down in 1972. Armando Garcia, director of organizing for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, hopes the practice will end in Florida, the same place it started.
He also said he’s concerned about the moral implications of capital punishment.
“I find it very disturbing that we conflate death with justice,” he said. “There's nothing about this that makes it right.”
Helen Pajama, a long-time anti-death penalty advocate and member of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Daytona, also spoke out. Author of My Friends on Death Row: Voices Silenced One by One, Pajama has been a vocal critic of the death penalty for over 35 years.
“I’m trying to save lives,” Pajama said. “I’m trying to save mothers so they don’t have empty arms.”
It’s a personal issue to Pajama, she said before ringing a ceremonial bell to remember those who have been executed.
“To date I have lost 29 friends by execution. By fire or poison,” she said.
Rather than execution, Pajama supports education and reform inside prisons, she said. She’s also concerned about the rate of death row inmates who’ve been wrongfully convicted, she said.
“They kill innocent people as well as the guilty,” she said.
Zuri Davis, a 28-year-old Jacksonville resident, voiced her strong opposition to the death penalty, highlighting both the moral and systemic issues it raises.
"First and foremost, the innocence of those on death row should be our focus," Davis said. "But there's also the question of whether the state has the right to kill someone, even when it's absolutely certain they committed a crime.”
About one in 25 criminal defendants sentenced to death in the U.S. has likely been wrongfully convicted. This 4.1% estimate is based on an analysis of over three decades of data on death sentences and death row exonerations across the country.
Cole's execution adhered to Florida's standard protocol, which consists of a three-drug combination: first, the sedative Etomidate, followed by the paralytic rocuronium bromide, and finally potassium acetate, which induces cardiac arrest.
Three minutes after the procedure began, Cole took deep breaths, his cheeks puffing out, and his body visibly trembling. Five minutes in, the warden shook him and called his name, where it was clear to witnesses that Cole had already stopped breathing. He was then declared dead at 6:15 PM at Florida State Prison.
Under Florida execution guidelines, Cole was allowed to request a last meal so long as it did not exceed $40.
For his last meal, Cole ate pizza, ice cream, M&Ms and soda.
Contact Carlos Alemany at calemany@alligator.org. Follow him on X @clos_alemany.
Carlos Alemany is a fourth year political science student and the Alligator's 2024 Criminal Justice Reporter. In his free time, you you may catch him thrifting or sketching in Gainesville.
