A Florida man was executed by lethal injection on Thursday after being convicted of one of a series of suspected killings that became known as the Hog Trail Murders in the ۱۹۹۰s.
Daniel Owen Conahan Jr, ۷۲, was sentenced to death for the ۱۹۹۶ kidnapping and strangling of Richard Allen Montgomery. Authorities found Montgomery’s mutilated body in a wooded south-west Florida area where the remains of at least six people have been found over a three-year span.
Conahan died at ۶.۱۲pm ET, state officials said.
Florida has carried out more than half of the ۲۴ total executions in the US this year, under Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor who leaves office in January. Conahan Jr is the ۱۵th person executed in the state this year.
Under DeSantis, Florida carried out ۱۹ executions in ۲۰۲۵, setting a state record since the death penalty was reinstated in ۱۹۷۶.
Conahan was arrested in July ۱۹۹۶ after local and state law enforcement officials spent more than two years investigating a series of homicides in which mutilated and decomposing bodies were discovered in a wooded area of Charlotte county, north of Fort Myers.
The deaths eventually were categorized as the Hog Trail Murders because of the swampy, wooded locations where the bodies were found. The case has been featured many times over the past three decades on true-crime media content.
Conahan, who maintained his innocence, was previously identified by authorities as a person of interest in the other deaths, but he was never charged. He argued that the evidence against him was circumstantial.
The first body was found by hunters in February ۱۹۹۴, followed by at least five more bodies over the next three years. Most of the remains were severely decomposed, but investigators believed Montgomery had been dead for less than a day when he was found.
Investigators eventually determined that the killer was targeting men who were unhoused.
Detectives started looking into Conahan in ۱۹۹۶ after a man in prison for stealing Conahan’s car claimed that Conahan had lured him to a remote area and offered to pay him to pose for nude photos. The man said he drove off in the car after seeing a knife.
Conahan waived his right to a jury trial and was convicted by a judge of murder and kidnapping in August ۱۹۹۹.
The Florida supreme court last week denied Conahan’s final appeals, including one requesting additional testing on DNA collected from the victim.
The petition said he has been requesting DNA testing since March ۲۰۲۵ of evidence collected at the scene and from Montgomery’s body to “conclusively establish that he is not responsible for the death”.
Within ۲۴ hours, the court ruled that proving Montgomery had DNA on his body from someone other than Conahan would not exonerate him.
The US supreme court on Thursday denied his final appeal.
