By DAVID FISCHER

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of abducting a woman from a Florida Panhandle insurance office and killing her was executed Tuesday evening.

Kayle Bates, 67, was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke under a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. It was the 10th death sentence carried out by the state of Florida in 2025, extending the state record for executions in a single year. Two more executions are planned within the next month

Alex Lanfranconi, a spokesman for DeSantis, said Bates said ‘no’ when asked if he had any final words just before the drugs began flowing.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, the highest previous annual total of Florida executions w

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