Sergeant Danny Thomas Parrish made a routine traffic stop on a quiet Fort Pierce street on January 18, 1991. He never went home. On March 3, 2026, after 34 years of legal battles, the man who fired 14 rounds into his body was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison.
Billy Leon Kearse, 53, was pronounced dead at 6:24 p. m. He had spent more than half his life on death row, ever since his conviction for the first-degree murder of the 29-year-old police officer.
The execution marked Florida’s 22nd in just over a year, a pace that shattered state records and reignited debate over capital punishment.
The night of the killing began with a routine violation. Kearse, then 18, was driving the wrong way down a one-way street. Parrish pulled him over.
A struggle erupted when the officer attempted to handcuff the teenager. Kearse seized Parrish’s firearm and fired 14 times. Nine rounds struck Parrish’s body; four were stopped by his vest, but the damage was fatal.
A nearby taxi driver heard the shots, grabbed the officer’s radio, and called for help. Parrish was rushed to the hospital but did not survive. He left behind a family, a grieving community, and a police department that would fight for justice across three decades.
Kearse’s legal odyssey began almost immediately. His trial was swift, but the punishment phase became a battlefield. Defense attorneys later argued that Kearse suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome, intellectual disabilities, and a childhood defined by severe poverty and neglect.
They claimed these factors made him ineligible for execution under the 2002 Supreme Court ruling in Atkins v. Virginia, which barred capital punishment for intellectually disabled offenders.
The Florida Supreme Court found errors in the original sentencing, ordering a new penalty phase in 1997. A jury again returned a death sentence. Over the following years, appeals wound through state courts, federal courts, the 11th Circuit, and the U.
S. Supreme Court. Each time, the answer came back the same: the sentence would stand.
Kearse’s lead attorney, who represented him for nearly 20 years, faced an agonizing distraction in the final weeks. When Governor Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant on January 29, 2026, the lawyer was at a hospital meeting with his father’s care team to discuss hospice. His father died during the proceedings.
The defense continued anyway, filing last-minute appeals that were denied one by one.
Hours before the execution, the final petition reached the U. S. Supreme Court.
The court rejected it without comment. There were no more legal avenues left.
On the morning of March 3, Kearse woke at Florida State Prison near Stark, Florida, aware this would be his last day. He had one visitor: a spiritual advisor. Corrections officials described him as calm and in good spirits.
He declined his last meal.
In the hours before the procedure, Kearse sent a message to his friends and family. He asked them to carry forward not anger, but love—even toward those who supported his execution. It was, by the accounts of those who received it, a deliberate message of peace.
The witness chamber filled with members of the Parrish family. Outside the prison gates, a small group of people gathered quietly. When the time came, a bell tolled.
At approximately 6:00 p. m. , Kearse was brought into the execution chamber.
He was asked if he had final words. He looked directly at the family of Danny Thomas Parrish and said: “To his family, I sincerely apologize for what I have done. And in turn, I pray my father would give me the strength to ask for their forgiveness, to give you peace and resolve.”
He acknowledged that his death would not undo the death of Sergeant Parrish. He asked for forgiveness anyway. The three-𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔 lethal injection was then administered.
Kearse twitched briefly after the drugs began. He stopped moving within minutes. A medic entered the room approximately 15 minutes later.
At 6:24 p. m. , Billy Leon Kearse was pronounced dead.
The execution did not close the conversation. It reopened it. Those who believed justice had been served pointed to Danny Parish, the young officer with three years on the force who made a routine stop and never went home.
“34 years is a long time to wait,” they said. “But the process ran its course.”
Those who opposed the execution focused on the compressed timeline—just 33 days between the death warrant and the lethal injection—and the unresolved claims of intellectual disability. Defense attorneys argued that the window left insufficient time to properly litigate final appeals. Both positions found an audience.
Neither silenced the other.
Kearse was 18 years old on the night of the murder. He was 53 when the state carried out his sentence. In between, there were 34 years of courts, appeals, and legal proceedings that touched on some of the most debated questions in American criminal justice.
What does justice look like for a crime this serious? What does the law owe a victim? What does it owe a defendant?
How does a legal process that spans three decades serve the people it is meant to serve—on both sides?
This case did not answer those questions. It simply put them in front of us one more time. Billy Leon Kearse was executed at 6:24 p.
m. on March 3, 2026. Sergeant Danny Thomas Parrish has been gone since January 18, 1991.
Those are the facts. What they mean is something each person will have to decide for themselves.
The execution occurred at Florida State Prison, a facility that has seen an unprecedented number of executions in recent months under Governor DeSantis. The state’s pace of putting inmates to death has drawn both praise from victims’ rights advocates and criticism from human rights organizations. Kearse’s case had become a rallying point for opponents of the death penalty, who argued that his background of fetal alcohol exposure, developmental delays, and extreme poverty should have spared him.
Supporters of the sentence, including many law enforcement groups, insisted that the murder of a police officer in the line of duty demands the ultimate punishment. They noted that Kearse had been examined multiple times over the years and that no court had ever definitively ruled him intellectually disabled under Florida’s stringent standards.
The Parrish family released a statement after the execution, expressing relief that the legal process had finally ended. “We have waited 34 years for this day,” the statement read. “Danny’s memory will never fade, but today we can begin to heal.”
Kearse’s legal team expressed disappointment, vowing to continue advocating for reforms in the death penalty system. His lead attorney said in a brief comment that the state had executed a man whose diminished capacity was never fully considered by the original jury. “The system failed him from the start,” the attorney said.
The case also highlighted the toll of prolonged capital litigation. Kearse spent more than three decades on death row, a period during which he aged from a teenager into a middle-aged man. His supporters argued that such a long wait between sentencing and execution amounts to cruel and unusual punishment in itself.
The state countered that the delays were caused by the defendant’s own appeals.
As night fell over the prison, the small group of protesters outside the gates dispersed. A few held signs reading “No Justice in Death” and “Stop the Executions.” They were joined by a handful of counter-protesters who waved American flags and expressed support for the officers’ family.
Inside the prison, the routine resumed. The execution chamber was cleaned. The witnesses departed.
And another chapter in Florida’s rapidly accelerating use of the death penalty closed.
For the family of Danny Thomas Parrish, the closure is bittersweet. The 29-year-old sergeant left behind a legacy of service and a community that never forgot his sacrifice. The Fort Pierce Police Department lowered its flags to half-staff on the day of the execution.
For the legal system, the case stands as a 34-year-long test of due process, of mercy, and of the ultimate question of whether a state has the right to take a life. The answer, at least in Florida on March 3, 2026, was yes.
Billy Leon Kearse is dead. The debate over his execution, and over the sentence itself, is not.