The American justice system let a killer walk out of prison after serving barely a third of his sentence.
That same killer went on to murder two more people within days of his release.
And Ron DeSantis just executed a serial killer and the victim’s family had a message for every soft-on-crime politician in America.
A Serial Killer the System Built and Then Unleashed
Ronald Heath was 16 years old when he stabbed and bludgeoned 18-year-old Michael Green to death in Jacksonville in 1977.
The prosecution called it "more a mutilation than a murder."
Heath got 30 years.
He served 10.
Psychological reports from 1978 and 1988 — reviewed by the Sheridan family decades later — flagged Heath as a serious danger, warning of his propensity for violence just six weeks before his release.
Nobody cared.
Six months after walking out of prison, Heath sat down at a Gainesville dive bar called the Purple Porpoise and let a traveling salesman named Michael Sheridan buy him drinks.
Sheridan, 30, was just trying to do his job — passing through on a business trip from Atlanta.
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The Heath brothers lured him out of that bar under the pretense of finding marijuana, drove him to an isolated area, and robbed him at gunpoint.
When Sheridan fought back, Ronald Heath kicked him, stabbed him in the neck with a hunting knife, and when the blade proved too dull to finish the job, he ordered his brother Kenneth to shoot him twice in the head.
They dumped the body in the woods and went on a shopping spree with Sheridan's credit cards.
Two days later, they murdered again — 26-year-old Anthony Hammett, killed two days before his wedding, a 15-month-old son left behind without a father.
That case never went to trial.
Justice Delayed 35 Years — But Justice Delivered
Ronald Heath sat on Florida's death row for 35 years while his attorneys filed appeal after appeal.
His lawyers argued his teenage incarceration stunted his brain development.
They argued the lethal injection might cause him suffering.
They even asked him to be executed by firing squad.
The Florida Supreme Court said no.
The U.S. Supreme Court said no.
On Tuesday evening, February 10, Ronald Heath was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. at Florida State Prison in Raiford.
His last words were, "I'm sorry. That's all I can say. Thank you."
In the witness room sat the Sheridan family — five of Michael's brothers, his sister Nancy, and five of his nephews — who spent 35 years fighting to make this moment happen.
They sent floods of letters to the Governor's office.
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They sent custom-made blue Sharpies — matching the pens used to sign death warrants.
Thomas Sheridan thanked DeSantis after the execution and got off one of the best lines of the night: "A final thank you for ordering the Ronald Palmer cocktail on Jan. 9 for tonight's service. Governor, as we agreed, that goes on my bar tab."
Kimberly Reeves, sister of Anthony Hammett — the victim whose murder charges were dropped when Kenneth changed his mind about testifying — said it best: "Ronald has had appeal, after appeal, after appeal. None of our brothers were ever able to appeal for their lives. Not once."
DeSantis Is Doing the Job Soft Governors Refused to Do
Here's the thing that should have every criminal-coddling politician in America sweating.
Florida executed 19 people in 2025 — more than double the previous state record of eight, which was set in 2014.
Florida alone accounted for 40% of all executions in the United States last year.
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DeSantis averaged two executions per month.
Two more Florida executions are already scheduled — Melvin Trotter on February 24 and Billy Leon Kearse on March 3, a man convicted of killing a police officer with his own service weapon.
The left-wing protesters gathered outside the prison fence tried to frame Heath's execution as an injustice because his brother Kenneth, who pulled the trigger, got life instead of death.
That argument collapses the moment you understand the facts.
The judge who sentenced Heath to death said it clearly: "Where Kenneth is weak, Ronald is strong."
Ronald was the one who conceived the robbery.
Ronald was the one who kicked a bleeding man and stabbed him in the neck.
Ronald was the one who ordered his brother to finish it.
Ronald Heath was the predator who had already killed once, walked out after serving 10 years of a 30-year sentence, and went right back to killing.
DeSantis put it plainly: "Some of these crimes were committed in the '80s. Justice delayed is justice denied."
The families of Ronald Heath's victims waited 35 to 48 years for this justice — decades of appeals, of hope and heartbreak, of watching a killer's lawyers find new reasons to delay the inevitable.
DeSantis is ending that era in Florida — and Michael Sheridan's family went home Tuesday night finally free of a burden they've carried since 1989.
Sources:
- Amanda Lee Myers, "Ronald Heath became a killer at 16. Now Florida is executing him," USA TODAY, February 9, 2026.
- "Florida carries out first execution of 2026," Fresh Take Florida / Florida Politics, February 10, 2026.
- "Florida executes Ronald Heath for murdering a man in Gainesville," WCJB/WCTV, February 10, 2026.
- "Marcellus family heads to Florida for execution of man who killed their brother," WSYR-TV/LocalSYR.com, February 5, 2026.
- "Man convicted of killing traveling salesman becomes first person executed in Florida this year," NBC News / Associated Press, February 10, 2026.
- "Florida sets up a third execution in 2026 as state leads US death penalty surge," Associated Press / ABC News, January 30, 2026.
- "New Report Examines Florida's Unprecedented Execution Pace and Trends in 2025," Death Penalty Information Center, January 6, 2026.
