Tallahassee, Florida– A man convicted of stabbing a woman to death during a home robbery in December is scheduled to be executed under a death warrant signed Friday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is preparing a case. Record pace of executions.
Mark Allen Geralds, 58, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on December 9 in a Florida state prison. Geralds will be the 18th person to be executed in Florida in 2025, as DeSantis has presided over more executions in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions.
DeSantis signed the death warrant a week before the November 13 execution Brian Frederick Jennings. Another convicted murderer, Richard Barry Randolphis scheduled to die on November 20.
Geralds was convicted of murder, armed robbery, burglary, and grand theft auto and sentenced to death in 1990. The Florida Supreme Court later overturned the conviction but affirmed the conviction, and Geralds was sentenced to death in 1993.
According to court records, Tressa Pettibone’s 8-year-old son found her beaten and stabbed to death on the kitchen floor of their Panama City home in February 1989. Geralds had previously done home remodeling work and knew the family’s schedule, including when the children would go to school and that Pettibone’s husband would be out of town on work. Investigators found that Geralds had pawned jewelry with traces of Pettibone’s blood on it, and plastic ties used to bind Pettibone that matched ties found in Geralds’ car.
Geralds’ attorneys are expected to file an appeal with the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
yet 41 people They are executed in the United States in 2025. The state of Florida is leading the way with a series of death warrants signed by DeSantis. The state’s last execution was lethal injection on October 28 Norman Merle Grimm JrWho was convicted of raping and killing his neighbor.