🚨 THE “I-95 KILLER” EXECUTED: FLORIDA CARRIES OUT DEATH SENTENCE FOR SERIAL MURDERER GARY RAY BOWLES

🚨 THE “I-95 KILLER” EXECUTED: FLORIDA CARRIES OUT DEATH SENTENCE FOR SERIAL MURDERER GARY RAY BOWLES

One of America’s most notorious serial killers has met his final fate.

Gary Ray Bowles, the drifter known as the “I-95 Killer,” was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison after being convicted of a murder spree that terrorized multiple states and left six men dead in less than a year.

The execution was carried out at 10:58 p.m., ending a case that had haunted investigators and victims’ families for decades.

Bowles received the death penalty for the 1994 murder of Walter Hinton, a Jacksonville Beach resident whose killing became the final known murder in a violent crime spree stretching along the Interstate 95 corridor.

But Hinton was not Bowles’ only victim.

Authorities linked Bowles to six murders committed over an eight-month period in 1994. The killings began in Daytona Beach, Florida, before spreading across several states, including Maryland, Georgia, and other parts of Florida. As investigators pieced together the crimes, fear spread throughout communities along the East Coast.

The victims were primarily older men whom Bowles encountered while traveling. Prosecutors said he often gained their trust before attacking and robbing them.

What particularly disturbed investigators was the unusual signature left behind at many of the crime scenes.

According to court records, Bowles frequently placed various objects inside the victims’ throats after killing them. The items varied from case to case and included household materials and personal belongings found at the scene. The disturbing pattern became one of the key details that helped investigators connect the murders.

As the body count grew, law enforcement agencies across multiple states worked together to track down the killer responsible.

The nationwide manhunt eventually led to Bowles’ arrest, bringing an end to a series of crimes that had generated headlines across the country. Prosecutors later described him as a dangerous predator who moved from place to place, leaving devastation behind him.

Over the years, Bowles pursued numerous appeals while on death row. Courts repeatedly reviewed his conviction and sentence, but the death penalty remained in place.

For the families of the victims, the execution marked the closing of a painful chapter that had lasted for decades.

The case remains one of the most infamous serial murder investigations of the 1990s, remembered not only for the number of victims but also for the fear it created across several states and the extensive law enforcement effort required to stop the killer.

Bowles did not say anything before his execution, but said in a handwritten statement dated Thursday that he was sorry for his actions.

“I’m sorry for all the pain and suffering I have caused. I hope my death eases your pain,” Bowles wrote. “I want to tell my mother that I am also sorry for my actions. Having to deal with your son being called a monster is terrible. I’m so very sorry. I never wanted this to be my life. You don’t wake up one day and decide to become a serial killer.”

The execution itself proceeded with nothing unusual happening, other than Bowles speaking to himself perhaps in prayer before the procedure was carried out.

Investigators say if he hadn’t been caught, he would have kept on killing.

“He probably enjoyed it after a while,” said Thomas Youngman, a Daytona Beach detective assigned to the Roberts murder. “Why do you kill people after the first one? The first one could be a mistake, maybe. But then the second, all right, I’ll maybe give you that. But the third, fourth fifth and sixth? When do you stop?”

It wasn’t hard for Daytona Beach police to figure out who killed Roberts , the first victim in March 1994: Bowles left a probation document at the scene and also was caught on an ATM camera trying to withdraw money from Roberts’ account. What proved more difficult was capturing him, something they were unable to do until after five other men in three states had been slain.

Bowles, 57, was raised in West Virginia, where he experienced drugs and violence at a young age. His father was a coal miner who died of black lung before he was born. His mother remarried multiple times, and his first two stepfathers were abusive, according to court records. His mother and brother testified that Bowles began drinking, smoking marijuana and huffing glue when he was 11 years old. When he was 13, he fought back against his second stepfather, smashing a rock in his head and nearly killing him, according to court records.

That’s when Bowles left home. Investigators say Bowles survived by letting gay men perform sex acts on him for money, though he has maintained he is straight,

“I had a question about him being gay. He told me he was not, and I said, ‘What do you describe yourself as?’ He said, ‘A hustler,’” Youngman said. “He’d befriend these old guys and have sexual relations with them, but I think they performed on him. He said he did not perform on them.”

He also had a history of violence against women.

He was convicted of beating and raping his girlfriend while living in Tampa in 1982 and sentenced to eight years in prison. The victim had severe injuries, including tears on her vagina and anus. Former Savannah detective John Best remembers hearing details of the crime as he investigated the murder of 72-year-old World War II veteran Milton Bradley.

“The Tampa detective, I remember her exact quote, ‘I’ve seen better looking bodies in an autopsy,’” Best said.

Best still suspects that Bowles is bisexual and also believes he might have killed women. He said during an interview with detectives, Bowles freely admitted to killing his male victims, almost in a boastful manner, but when asked if there were female victims, he hemmed and hawed.

“He never gave us a yes or no answer,” Best said. “It was, ‘Let’s change the subject.’”