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Governor Approves Execution

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The Associated Press

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 12, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Charlie Crist signed a death warrant this week for a Central Florida man convicted of killing two young girls after raping their mother in 1993.

Richard "Ric Ric" Henyard abducted Dorothy Lewis and her 3-year-old and 7-year old daughters from a Eustis grocery store. Henyard, now 34, and a friend, Alfonza Smalls, raped the mother on the trunk of her car while the two young girls were in the back seat.

Afterward, Henyard shot Lewis several times and left her for dead, but she somehow survived. When the girls, Jasmine and Jamilya, kept crying and calling "Mommy," Henyard shot both in their heads and threw their bodies into underbrush along the road.

Lewis attempted to grab a gun away from her assailants after the rape, but Smalls retorted, "you're not going to get the gun." The mother prayed to Jesus for help, and Henyard replied, "this ain't Jesus, this is Satan," court records say.

Smalls, who was just 14 when the crimes took place, is serving a life sentence.

Lewis, now a pastor and motivational speaker, was informed of the death warrant by the governor's office, but declined to talk about it.

"I can truly say that I am no longer a victim, but I am victorious through the love of God," Lewis, now 51, says on her professional Web site.

Earlier this year, Crist asked for a list of about five death row inmates who have served the longest or committed the most heinous crimes so he could sign warrants ordering those executions. Henyard, who was sentenced to die in 1994, met the criteria. There are 387 inmates on Florida's death row.

"When you look at the horrific nature of this crime, it lets you know that the penalty he will receive is certainly justified," Crist said Wednesday, adding that it was "unimaginable that any human being could carry out such a horrendous act."

The governor's order set the execution for Sept. 23 at Florida State Prison.

The warrant mildly surprised Mark Gruber, Hen- yard's attorney, because of the timing. Gruber said there is a pending issue before the state Supreme Court regarding lethal injection in Henyard's case.

"We'll be filing motions of course," Gruber said Wednesday. "The paperwork is in the works."

The warrant for Henyard was the second signed by Crist since taking office. The first was executed last week when Mark Dean Schwab died from a lethal injection for the 1991 murder of an 11-year-old boy.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush placed a moratorium on executions after it took 34 minutes, twice as long as usual, for convicted killer Angel Diaz, 55, to die in December 2006.

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