EXECUTIONS 2026: Will US ice as many as record-breaking 2025?

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The roster of death is truncated.

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At this point in the new year, there are just 16 names on the list of the condemned slated to be executed in the United States in 2026.

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In 2025, Florida alone shattered records by booking passage for 19 men on the night train to Nowheresville. The Sunshine State’s previous record was eight killers getting the big adios.

This year, executions are planned in five states, with Texas leading the way. Unusually, on the lineup for 2026, is a feminine touch in the form of Tennessee teen killer Christa Pike.

And then there’s Ohio. Every year, the Buckeye State posts an ambitious slate of condemned killers it wants to take off the board. And like Charlie Brown falling for the football gag, no one ever gets iced. The availability of drugs and a slew of other issues have consistently torpedoed the Grim Reaper.

No federal executions are scheduled for 2026. Here’s who’s on the hot seat.

JAN. 28 – TEXAS

Charles Victor Thompson

411: Double killer Thompson, 55, has been in the death house at Huntsville since 1999. Thompson murdered his former girlfriend, Glenda Dennise Hayslip, and her new beau, Darren Keith Cain, on April 30, 1998. A domestic went off the rails, cops came and took Thompson away. Three hours later, he came back and kicked the door before shooting Cain four times. He then told Hayslip: “I can shoot you too, b—.” Then he shot her in the face. She died days later. While awaiting trial he approached two fellow cons about whacking a witness.

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FEB. 10 – FLORIDA

Ronald Heath

411: On May 24, 1989, Michael Sheridan was shot, stabbed and robbed in a wooded area south of Gainesville in Alachua County. It is a typical knucklehead murder. Heath, 64, and his brother, Kenny, met Sheridan at the Purple Porpoise Lounge in Gainesville before driving to a park to smoke reefer. Sheridan was stabbed in the neck and Heath tried to slit his throat before ordering his brother to blow the man’s brains out.

FEB. 12 – OKLAHOMA

Kendrick Simpson

411: Simpson, 45, will be getting the needle at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was sentenced to death for the 2006 shooting deaths of Glen Palmer, 20, and Anthony Jones, 19, in Oklahoma City. Using an AK-47 style assault rifle, he shot 20 times at the car carrying the victims. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said: “Kendrick Simpson hunted his victims, executed them without hesitation, and then boasted about what he had done.”

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MARCH 11 – TEXAS

Cedric Ricks

411: Ricks, 51, has run out of options and time. Good. He was convicted of stabbing his girlfriend and her eight-year-old son to death with butcher knives in 2013.  Ricks repeatedly stabbed Roxann Sanchez, with whom he was arguing, and Anthony Figueroa.

APRIL 30 – TEXAS

James Broadnax

411: Broadnax, 36, was sentenced to die for a robbery and double murder that left two Christian music producers dead. On June 19, 2008, Broadnax ambushed Stephen Swan, 26, and 28-year-old Zion Gate records owner Matthew Butler. The victims were shot to death in a parking lot outside their Garland recording studio. The killer and his cousin, Demarius Cummings, were nabbed driving Swan’s vehicle. Broadnax later told cops: “I don’t even think I got a conscience, dog.”

MAY 14 – TEXAS

Edward Lee Busby Jr.

411: Busby, 53, will die for the kidnapping and murder of retired university professor Laura Lee Crane, 77, in 2004 at a Fort Worth grocery store parking lot. He was busted driving Crane’s car in Oklahoma City. Her body was discovered near the border with Texas. His lawyers argue he is ineligible for the death penalty because he is mentally impaired.

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MAY 21- TENNESSEE

Tony Carruthers

411: Carruthers wanted to rule like an emperor his corner of Memphis. Now, he faces execution for the 1994 robbery and murders of Marcellos Anderson, 21, Frederick Tucker, 17, and Anderson’s mother, Delois Anderson, 43. Cops say Marcellos Anderson was a drug dealer, and Carruthers was trying to take over the illegal drug trade in their neighbourhood. Chanelling James Cagney as Rocky Sullivan (Angels With Dirty Faces) to the bitter end, Carruthers was forced to represent himself at trial after repeatedly moaning about his court-appointed attorneys and threatening to harm several of them.

JUNE 17 – OHIO

Gerald R. Hand

411: It was wife number four who sealed a the deal for Hand, 54. Hand, 77, was convicted of killing his wife, Jill, 58, and friend Walter Welch, 55, in 2002 at the couple’s home north of Columbus. Hand is also suspected in the mysterious deaths of his first two wives, but he has not been charged. Prosecutors said Welch helped Hand kill his first two wives and Hand shot him to keep him quiet.

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JULY 15 – OHIO

Cleveland R. Jackson

411: Jackson, 47, was convicted along with his half-brother Jeronique Cunningham of shooting and killing 17-year-old Leneshia Williams and 3-year-old Jayla Grant at a Cleveland apartment in 2002. A staggering eight people were shot during that drug heist attempt. Cunningham is serving a sentence of life in prison. Jackson has been on death row for more than 20 years.

JULY 22 – OHIO

Danny L. Hill

411: Hill, 59, is also going the intellectually disabled route in his quest to escape the needle. He’s is on the hotseat for the horrific 1985 murder of 12-year-old Boy Scout Raymond Fife in Warren.  Hill was 18 years old when, according to court records, he and an accomplice attacked Fife. Fife died two days later.

AUG. 13 – TENNESSEE

Anthony Darrell Dugard Hines

411: Hines, 65, was sentenced to death after he was convicted of raping, robbing and killing Katherine Jean Jenkins, a motel maid Kingston Springs, in 1985. Her body was discovered wrapped in a sheet in Room 21 of the CeBon Motel off Interstate 40. She died of multiple stab wounds to the chest with a butcher-style knife. A knife wound also penetrated the vagina.

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AUG. 19 – OHIO

James D. O’Neal

411: O’Neal of Hamilton, Ohio, thought he should teach his wife a lesson. In December 1993, his wife, Carol, kicked O’Neal and his sons out of the marital home. He later told cops that he broke into the house, followed his wife upstairs to the bedroom, and shot her to “teach her a lesson.” Her son Ricardo said O’Neal also tried to shoot him, but his gun jammed.

SEPT. 30 – TENNESSEE

Christa Pike

411:  Pike, 49, was sentenced to death for the brutal slaying of Colleen Slemmer, a fellow teenager at a Knoxville career training program. Prosecutors said two other young people participated in the 1995 killing, but Pike was the only one sentenced to death. She was 18 at the time and the last woman sentenced to die in the Volunteer State. She would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years.

OCT. 21 – OHIO

Jerome Henderson

411: Henderson, 65, was convicted in the March 3, 1986, aggravated murder, burglary and attempted rape of Mary Acoff in Cincinnati.  He was convicted of the charges on July 17, 1985. Henderson says he did not know the victim but they lived in the same neighbourhood.

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NOV. 18 – OHIO

Melvin D. Bonnell Jr.

411: Bonnell Jr., 62, will die for the 1986 shooting murder of Robert Bunner, 23, in Cleveland. He has claimed he’s innocent, but DNA and witnesses put him at the scene of the crime. His pleas have fallen upon deaf ears.

DEC. 3 – TENNESSEE

Gary Wayne Sutton

411: Sutton, 60, was sentenced to death in connection with the 1992 murders of Tommy Griffin and his sister Connie Branam in Blount County. Prosecutors said Sutton carried out the killings with his uncle James Dellinger. Dellinger was also convicted and sentenced to death but died of natural causes on death row in 2023.

bhunter@postmedia.com

On X: @HunterTOSun

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