Andrew Richard Lukehart was executed by lethal injection Tuesday at Florida State Prison
The last day of Gabrielle Hanshaw’s short life was unseasonably warm for February. The temperature soared to 80 degrees in Jacksonville that Sunday in 1996.
Gabby’s family spent the hot afternoon running errands, then went back to their home on Epson Lane, near Normandy Boulevard.
Gabby was placed in her playpen. Her mom, Misty, took her 2-year-old sister, Ashley, into a bedroom to lie down because Ashley had been sick.
That left 5-month-old Gabby in the care of 22-year-old Andrew Lukehart, her mother’s boyfriend.
He would be the last person to see her alive.
On June 2, 2026, Lukehart, 53, was executed, more than 30 years after Gabby drew her last breath while in his care.
He was convicted in February 1997 of child abuse and felony murder in Gabby’s death, and a jury recommended the death penalty in a 9-3 vote.
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Lukehart’s death warrant on May 1, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Lukehart’s final appeal on Monday.
After decades of appeals, Tuesday’s execution at Florida State Prison in Raiford felt like it was a long time coming for Gabby’s mother.
Misty declined an interview for this story, but she told News4JAX she would be at Lukehart’s execution.
How the case unfolded
Around 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 25, 1996, Lukehart picked Gabby up out of the playpen and noticed she had a messy diaper. He went into the room where Misty was lying down with Ashley to get a clean diaper and some baby wipes, but Misty told him the baby wipes were in the back den.
Lukehart took the clean diaper and Gabby into the room at the back of the house.
Misty never saw Gabby alive again.
Around 5 p.m., she heard her car – a white 1981 Oldsmobile Regency – start up in the driveway and looked out to see Lukehart driving away. She checked the house but couldn’t find Gabby anywhere.
Where was he going? And where was Gabby?
Half an hour later, Lukehart called from a Lil’ Champ convenience on Normandy Boulevard and told Misty to call 911.
He said someone had come into the home, taken Gabby and left in a blue Chevrolet Blazer. He was chasing the kidnappers in her car.
That was a lie.
But Misty didn’t know that, so she hung up and called police to report the kidnapping.
Around 6 p.m., half an hour after Lukehart had called Misty, a Clay County deputy responding to a crash report found Misty’s Oldsmobile abandoned on the side of County Road 217.
It was still running and in drive about 50 feet off the road in a ditch near a telephone pole.
Deputy Jeff Gardner saw a baby chair in the back seat on the passenger side and some baby clothes on the floorboard.
He didn’t know about the reported abduction and spent the next hour trying to find the owner of the car. Eventually, he got a number for Misty’s house and called.
Someone with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office answered the phone.
Gardner heard the story about the reported abduction of a 5-month-old and that Misty’s boyfriend said he had used her car to chase potential kidnappers in a blue Chevy Blazer.
Gardner had found the car, but where was Lukehart?
A few minutes after talking with the officers, Gardner found out.
Lukehart, wearing no shirt and no shoes, had walked up to a home in rural Clay County that happened to belong to a Florida Highway Patrol trooper.
That’s where Gardner picked him up and brought him back to the crash site, where he eventually spoke with JSO Detective Tim Reddish.
When Reddish told Lukehart that neighbors on Epson Lane had seen him driving away in the Oldsmobile but never saw a blue Blazer, Lukehart shifted his story.
Now, he said the kidnappers had taken Gabby out of the car at the Lil’ Champ.
The whole situation seemed bizarre.
