More than 30 years after 23-year-old Carmen Gayheart was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in broad daylight, her killer Anthony Wainwright was executed in Florida. Carmen, a nursing student and mother of two, had just moved into her dream home with her husband and children when she was abducted by two escaped convicts outside a grocery store in Lake City, Florida. Her brutalized body was found five days later.
Wainwright and his accomplice Richard Hamilton were captured shortly after in Mississippi. Both received death sentences; Hamilton died in prison in 2023. Carmen’s sister, Maria David, who keeps her memory alive online and through vigils, witnessed Wainwright’s execution, saying it was a step toward justice for a woman who “was too good for this world.”
