The state of Florida executed Daniel Owen Conahan Jr. on Thursday evening, closing the books on a 27-year legal saga for a man investigators long believed was responsible for a string of killings that terrorized the Gulf Coast for years, though he was only ever convicted of a single murder.
Conahan, 72, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p. m. at Florida State Prison, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.
The execution, carried out via lethal injection, came after Governor Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant in August, making him the 15th inmate put to death in the state that year. Conahan had spent nearly three decades on death row for the 1996 murder of 21-year-old Richard Montgomery, whose body was found strangled and tied to a tree in a remote wooded area between Northport and Fort Myers.
But the case against Conahan, known infamously as the Hog Trail Killer, always carried a far darker weight. Law enforcement officials who worked the investigation expressed little doubt that Conahan was responsible for a series of killings stretching back to the early 1990s, in which young men were lured into isolated woods, stripped, and murdered in a strikingly similar fashion. Despite extensive efforts, prosecutors were only able to secure a conviction in Montgomery’s death, leaving a trail of unsolved cases and unidentified victims that haunted the investigation for decades.
The grim tableau that began the end for Conahan unfolded on the afternoon of April 16th, 1996. Montgomery, described by friends as easygoing and often short on cash, told companions he was going to make a couple hundred bucks. He had earlier mentioned to his mother that a new acquaintance, a nurse named Daniel Conahan, had offered him $200 to pose for 𝓷𝓾𝓭𝓮 photographs.
That evening, Montgomery got into a car and was never seen alive again.
At approximately 6:07 p. m. that same day, surveillance footage captured Conahan at a Walmart in Punta Gorda, purchasing clothesline, Polaroid film, a pair of pliers, and a utility knife.
Five minutes later, an ATM camera showed him withdrawing cash, calm and methodical. The next afternoon, county workers discovered a human skull in a thick patch of woods off Highway 41. Under a sheet of carpet padding, deputies found Montgomery’s naked body, bearing rope marks around his neck, wrists, and waist.
The medical examiner determined he had been strangled while standing, tied to a tree from the front, his killer pulling the rope from behind. A police dog led investigators to a sabal palm a few feet away, its trunk scraped raw, confirming the horrific method of death
The case cracked open when detectives recalled a strikingly similar attack two years earlier, in which a victim named Stanley Burton had survived. In 1994, Burton, a young man in need of money, had accepted a similar offer from Conahan to pose for photographs. What began as a photo shoot devolved into a nightmare when Conahan produced clothesline, bound Burton to a tree, and began strangling him.
For 30 agonizing minutes, Burton fought for his life, wrenching his neck to keep his airway open, even as Conahan struck him and asked, why he wouldn’t just die. Eventually, Conahan abandoned the attack, and Burton escaped to report the incident. His report, however, sat in a drawer for two years while more bodies surfaced
The break in the case ultimately came not from police work but from another would-be victim, David Payton. After accepting a ride from Conahan, Payton spotted a bag in the back seat containing rope, a tarp, and a knife. When the car got stuck in mud, Payton seized the moment, slid behind the wheel, and sped off, leaving Conahan behind.
Conahan’s audacious response, reporting his own car stolen to police, led investigators directly to him. A search of his home uncovered rope, cameras, and stained underwear, pieces of a method laid bare. Forensic evidence, including matching fibers and a fleck of paint from his father’s Mercury Capri linked to Montgomery’s body, cemented the case
Conahan waived his right to a jury for the guilt phase of his trial, placing his fate in the hands of Judge Donald Pelia. On August 17th, 1999, the judge found him guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and kidnapping. During the penalty phase, a jury unanimously recommended the death penalty after hearing harrowing testimony about the nature of strangulation and Conahan’s own admitted fantasies of tying men up in the woods.
His defense argued Montgomery’s death was a game gone wrong, but the state countered that buying rope, a knife, and pliers en route to a meeting was the act of someone who knew exactly how the night would end
Throughout his 27 years on death row, Conahan maintained his innocence, filing a relentless stream of appeals and motions. He swore he was innocent not only in Montgomery’s case but in every other death attributed to him. Courts repeatedly rejected his claims.
In his final months, as DeSantis signed his death warrant, Conahan still had a motion pending for additional DNA testing, a claim the court later admitted it had overlooked. The Florida Supreme Court denied his requests for a stay in a single line, with only one justice dissenting
The shadow of other victims loomed large over the execution. Beginning in 1994, hunters and surveyors had discovered numerous bodies in the remote woodlands along the Gulf Coast, young men mostly, many bearing rope marks and missing body parts in a manner consistent with Montgomery’s murder. In 2007, a surveyor in Fort Myers discovered two human skulls, leading to the recovery of eight sets of remains from a single plot of land.
Detectives were convinced Conahan was responsible for all of them, but they never managed to build cases on the others with the same evidentiary strength as Montgomery’s. Four of those victims remain unidentified to this day, their names lost to history
As the hour of his execution approached, Conahan showed no resistance. He woke at 5:30 a. m.
and gave authorities no trouble. His last meal consisted of chicken, a baked potato, corn, a soda, and a slice of pumpkin pie. In a final detail that underscored the isolation of his final days, Conahan had no visitors.
No family members waited in the viewing room. No friends came to say goodbye. The man who had spent 27 years protesting his innocence faced his death alone
At 6:01 p. m. , the curtain to the death chamber rose.
Conahan, already strapped to the gurney with an IV line in his arm, had a spiritual adviser kneeling at his feet, praying quietly. The warden asked if he had any final statement. After 27 years of maintaining his innocence, after countless appeals and motions insisting authorities had the wrong man, Conahan’s final words were two: No sir.
At 6:12 p. m. , he was pronounced dead
The execution brings a measure of closure to the Montgomery family, who waited nearly three decades for this moment. But for investigators who spent years pulling bodies from those woods, and for the families of victims who never received justice, the question of whether true justice was served remains hauntingly open. The Hog Trail Killer took his secrets to the grave, leaving behind a legacy of unanswered questions and four unnamed souls whose stories may never be told