A man who abducted a woman from a Florida insurance office and killed herin 1982 is scheduled for execution in Florida under a death warrant signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Kayle Barrington Bates, 67, is set to die Aug. 19 in the 10th execution scheduled for this year.
Bates was convicted in 1983 of first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and attempted sexual battery in the Bay County killing of 24-year-old Janet Renee White, of Lynn Haven.
Bates abducted White from a State Farm insurance office, took White into some woods behind the building, attempted to rape her, stabbed her to death and tore a diamond ring from one of her fingers, according to a letter from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.
According to court records, Bates was a delivery man for a Tallahassee a paper company and had made at least one previous delivery stop at the office. He broke into the office while White was at lunch and waited for her to return.
He was sentenced by the trial judge in 1983, but after a resentencing hearing in 1995 was again given the death penalty, according to court records. The Florida Supreme Court last year rejected an appeal by Bates related to a juror from the original trial, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for him June 30.
Bates' attorney, James Driscoll Jr., said in a phone call Saturday that he would be filing further appeals in the case.
“We believe his execution would violate the U.S. constitution,” he said.
DeSantis signed the warrant Friday, three days after the state executed Michael Bell for fatally shooting two people outside a Jacksonville bar in 1993 as part of an attempted revenge killing. It was Florida's eighth execution this year, matching a modern-day record.
Edward J. Zakrzewski II, who killed his wife and two children in 1994 after she sought a divorce in Okaloosa County, is set to die by lethal injection July 31 in the ninth execution scheduled this year in the state. His attorneys have appealed to the Florida Supreme Court.
The state executed six people in 2023 but only carried out one execution last year.
Bell was the 26th person to die by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., exceeding the 25 executions carried out last year. It is the highest total since 2015, when 28 people were put to death.
