Recap: After 30 years on death row, Loran Cole executed for FSU student’s murder

The 57-year-old man sentenced to death in the murder of a Florida State University student in 1994 is scheduled to be executed at 6 p.m. – more than 30 years after the crime.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant for Loran K. Cole on July 29. Cole will be put to death by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford, Union County.

The Tallahassee Democrat’s Elena Barrera, the newspaper’s breaking and trending news reporter, is covering the execution today.

Check back here throughout the afternoon and evening for updates:

After Cole’s execution, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty released a statement calling his death by lethal injection “particularly calculated, and particularly hypocritical.”

“In Florida, the governor has the sole discretion on when, whether, and for whom to set an execution,” it said. “The process is shrouded in mystery and secrecy. We have no way of knowing how or why Loran was chosen, and no way of knowing who might be next.”

The statement also said the group tried to take more than 7,000 signed petitions to spare Cole to the governor, but its members “were told that due to construction, there is no way for the public to access the Governor’s office. Not even a makeshift reception area to allow Floridians’ voices to be heard.”

It went on: “A selection process shrouded in secrecy. No way for the public to make its voice heard. Key officials unavailable the week we are killing a human being. This is no system of orderly justice.”

The full statement is here.

Thirty years after his crime, Loran K. Cole has been executed at Florida State Prison for the 1994 murder of John Edwards, an 18-year-old Florida State University student.

His death came after a last-ditch legal effort to prevent his execution based on alleged abuse he suffered at a notorious and now-shuttered boys’ reform school, as well as health conditions, including Parkinson’s disease.

He was declared dead at 6:15 p.m. by a prison doctor. He had no last words, saying “no, sir” when asked.

Cole’s body appeared to tremble for several minutes as he lay strapped to the gurney.

There were 19 witnesses, two guards, four Corrections Department communications staff members, and seven journalists who observed Cole’s death.

Reporter Elena Barrera, who is covering tonight’s execution for the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida, spent weeks talking to loved ones and sifting through the Tallahassee Democrat’s archives and court records for a special report on the impact a savage murder and capital punishment has on those left behind.

Friends and fraternity brothers of John Edwards, who was brutally murdered, spoke about all the missed moments they would have shared together from weddings to promotions.

Barrett Atwood said he didn’t process the pain for years. But one by one, everyone started to pick up the pieces and do the one thing they wished John could do — live.

Atwood became an attorney. One brother started a wealth management practice. Another became an ordained minister. Still another became a Marine.

The tragedy “just taught me a lot about life,” Atwood said. “And I’m sorry John had to lose his life to do that.”

Barrera also spoke with convicted killer Loran Cole’s loved ones, who are still trying to separate the man from the monster portrayed in court records.

In the eyes of the state of Florida and a jury of his peers, Cole is a murderer. But to his ex-wife, he was her head-over-heels first love. To his son, he is the father he wishes he could’ve grown up with. To his prison pen pal, he is a cherished friend.

Read the two-part series here.

Cole woke up at 6 a.m. Thursday morning and has “remained compliant” since, said Florida Department of Corrections spokesman Ted Veerman.

He declined a meeting with a spiritual adviser but was joined by his son, Ryan Cole, and his pen-pal friend of 4 years, Beth Evans, for his last meal: Pizza, ice cream, M&Ms and soda.

Veerman said Cole was offered a sedative, but he “cannot confirm whether or not he took it.”

An inmate’s family members are not permitted to witness his execution.

“We’ve extended an invitation to the victim’s family,” Veerman added. “At this point, no one is slated to attend, but I’ll have a statement that I will be reading … after the execution.”

Two of the last few executions in Florida were Tallahassee-related cases:

On Oct. 3, 2023, a drifter from Tallahassee who killed two women in the Florida Panhandle during a crime spree in 1996 was executed.

Michael Duane Zack, 54, was sentenced to death in the 1996 Escambia County murder of Ravonne Smith during a crime spree that also included killing a woman, Laura Rosillo, in Okaloosa County.

And on Feb. 23, 2023, Donald Dillbeck, 59, was executed for the 1990 murder of Faye Vann outside a Tallahassee mall.

Dillbeck was the first prisoner executed in Florida since 2019, after a three-and-a-half year hiatus brought on by COVID-19. He was the 100th prisoner executed since the death penalty was reinstated in Florida in 1975, according to the Department of Corrections.

Dillbeck’s last words also were aimed at DeSantis.

“I know I hurt people when I was young. I really messed up,” said Dillbeck, 59, as he was strapped to a gurney in the Florida State Prison death chamber. “But I know Ron DeSantis has done a lot worse. He’s taken a lot from a lot of people. I speak for all men, women and children. He’s put his foot on our necks.”

The Florida Department of Corrections lays out the detailed protocol for a convict’s execution day. Its guidance includes in part:

• “A food service director, or his/her designee, will personally prepare and serve the inmate’s last meal. The inmate will be allowed to request specific food and non-alcoholic drink to the extent such food and drink costs forty dollars ($40) or less, is available at the institution, and is approved by the food service director.”
• “The inmate will be escorted by one or more team members to the shower area, where a team member of the same gender will supervise the showering of the inmate. Immediately thereafter, the inmate will be returned to his/her assigned cell and issued appropriate clothing. A designated member of the execution team will obtain and deliver the clothing to the inmate.”
• “A designated execution team member will ensure that the telephone in the execution chamber is fully functional and that there is a fully-charged, fully-functional cellular telephone in the execution chamber. Telephone calls will be placed from the telephone to ensure proper operation. Additionally, a member of the team shall ensure that the two-way audio communication system and the visual monitoring equipment arc fully functional.
• “The only staff authorized to be in the execution chamber area are members of the execution team and others as approved by the team warden, including two monitors from FDLE. A designated execution team member, in the presence of one or more additional team members and an independent observer from FDLE, will prepare the lethal injection chemicals as follows, ensuring that each syringe used in the lethal injection process is appropriately labeled….”

Cole, then 27, and William Paul, then 20, befriended John Edwards and his sister, who planned to spend a weekend camping in the Ocala National Forest in February 1994. John was an 18-year-old student at FSU at the time.

Cole and Paul later attacked both siblings, according to court filings: Edwards died that night from a slashed throat and three blows to the head, causing a fractured skull. The sister was raped but got away.

“The men who committed these crimes are damnable animals,” then-Marion County Sheriff Ken Ergle said at the time, according to news reports.

In 1995, Cole and Paul were convicted of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping and two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon. Cole also was found guilty of two counts of sexual battery.

Cole was sentenced to death and Paul was sentenced to life in prison. A state Corrections Department database on Thursday showed Paul is being held at Cross City Correctional Institution in Dixie County.

By 6 p.m. ET today, Cole will be strapped to a gurney in the death chamber at Florida State Prison, where, if all goes as planned, a three-drug cocktail will enter his veins through a needle.

Florida’s lethal injection cocktail consists of three chemicals:

• The first is an injection of etomidate, an anesthetic.
• The second injection is rocuronium bromide, a paralytic muscle relaxer.
• The third is potassium acetate, which causes the heart to stop, followed by an injection of a saline solution. The executioner also injects a saline solution to ensure the drugs enter the inmate’s veins.

In 2000, then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush signed legislation making lethal injection the state’s default method of execution amid controversy over the electric chair.

The last inmate Florida executed by electrocution was Allen Davis in July 1999. Witnesses described blood streaming from Davis’ nose and onto his shirt, which drew widespread attention two years after an inmate’s mask burst into flames during a different Florida electrocution.

On Thursday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court released a brief statement that it had declined Cole’s request to postpone his execution.

“The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to Justice (Clarence) Thomas and by him referred to the Court is denied,” the court said in a 10:33 a.m. email. “The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.”

A stay is a court action that stops a legal proceeding, usually temporarily.

More: ‘He wasn’t forgotten’: Friends of John Edwards reflect on Loran Cole’s impending execution

More: ‘He wasn’t forgotten’: Friends of John Edwards reflect on Loran Cole’s impending execution

Portions of this live blog contain previously reported material by staff of the USA TODAY Network – Florida.

Breaking & trending news reporter Elena Barrera can be reached at ebarrera@tallahassee.com. Follow her on X: @elenabarreraaa.