A man convicted of killing a traveling salesman he and his brother met in a bar has become the first person to be executed Florida This year.
Ronald Palmer Heath, 64, was pronounced dead at 6.12pm on Tuesday after a three-drug injection. Florida State Prison near Starke. Heath was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery with a deadly weapon and other charges in the 1989 murder of Michael Sheridan.
It was the state’s first execution in 2026 and followed a record 19 executions in Florida last year. The state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantisoversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the US reinstated the death penalty in 1976. The previous Florida record, set in 2014, was eight executions.
Heath and his brother, Kenneth Heath, met Sheridan at a Gainesville bar in May 1989, according to court records. After spending some time at the bar, the three men agreed to go somewhere else to smoke marijuana.
At some point, the brothers conspired to rob the other man, investigators said. Ronald Heath takes the group to a remote area, where Kenneth Heath pulls a handgun on Sheridan. The man initially refused to give the brothers anything and Kenneth Heath shot Sheridan in the chest.
As Sheridan emptied his pockets, Ronald Heath began kicking and stabbing the man with a hunting knife, prosecutors said. Kenneth Heath shot Sheridan twice in the head.
The brothers dumped Sheridan’s body in a wooded area and returned to a Gainesville bar to retrieve items from his rental car, according to court records. The brothers allegedly made several purchases with Sheridan’s credit cards at a Gainesville mall the next day.
Ronald Heath was arrested several weeks later at his home in Douglas, Georgia, after investigators connected him to the stolen credit cards. Authorities recovered clothing purchased with the stolen cards, as well as Sheridan’s watch, according to court records.
Kenneth Heath was also charged with Sheridan’s murder, but was sentenced to life in prison as part of a plea deal.
The Florida Supreme Court denied appeals filed by Ronald Heath last week. His attorneys argued that Florida corrections officials mishandled the state’s death penalty protocols, that the state’s secret pardon process obstructed due process, that Heath’s detention as a child stunted his brain development and that jurors could not unanimously recommend the death penalty.
On Tuesday morning, the US Supreme Court rejected Heath’s appeal.
A total of 47 people were executed in the US in 2025. Florida leads with death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions that year.
Two more Florida executions are already scheduled for later this month and next month. Melvin Trotter, 65, is scheduled to die on February 24 and Billy Leon Kearse, 53, will be executed exactly one week later, on March 3.
According to the state Department of Corrections, all executions in Florida are carried out by lethal injection using an anesthetic, paralyzing and heart-stopping drug.
