Man Convicted of Abducting, Raping and Killing a Young Woman in 1994 Set to Be Executed in Florida

A Florida man convicted of raping and killing a woman 30 years ago after he kidnapped her from a Winn-Dixie parking lot is scheduled to be executed Tuesday.

Anthony Wainwright, 54, is scheduled for a lethal injection Tuesday evening at Florida State Prison in Raiford, Fla.

Wainwright was convicted of the April 1994 killing of 23-year-old Carmen Gayheart and the jury unanimously recommended that he be sentenced to death, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE.

In April 1994, Wainwright and his crime partner, Richard Hamilton, escaped from a prison in North Carolina, stole guns and a car and drove to Florida, according to his court documents.

On April 27, 1994, the pair confronted Gayheart, a young mother or two, at gunpoint as she loaded groceries into her car. They stole her car and took off with Gayheart. Wainwright and Hamilton raped Gayheart in the backseat and tried to strangle her before shooting her twice in the back of the head, per the documents. 

Wainwright and Hamilton were arrested the next day in Mississippi following a shootout with police, the court documents said. 

The U.S. Supreme Court denied several of Wainwright’s appeals and maintained that he will be executed Tuesday, around 6 p.m, according to his death warrant signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. 

Gayheart’s sister, Maria David, told the AP that they’ve waited far too long for justice. “It’s ridiculous how many appeals they get,” David told the outlet. “You have to relive it again because they have to tell the whole story again.” 

David told the AP that she became “overcome with emotion” when the governor signed the death warrant for Wainwright. Both her parents died while waiting for him to be sentenced to death; she plans to be there for the day of Wainwright’s execution. 

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David told the outlet that she wants her sister to be remembered and for others to know that she was loved. 

“There’s nothing that would keep me from seeing this all the way through,” she said. “I’m looking forward to getting the last pieces of paperwork that say he’s been executed to put in the book and never having to think about Anthony Wainwright ever again. 

Wainwright will be the sixth person to be executed in Florida this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.