JUST IN: Florida Death Row Inmate Ronald Palmer Heath Executed After 35 Years | Last Words & Meal..

February 10th, 2026. Florida State Prison, Starke, Florida. A 64-year-old man wakes up at 7:00 a.m. for the last time.  His name is Ronald Palmer Heath. In exactly 11 hours, he will be dead. He showers. He reads his Bible. He refuses a spiritual advisor. Throughout the day, only two people visit him.

 His elderly mother and a friend who stood by him through 35 years on death row. When prison officials ask if he wants a special last meal, Heath declines. No final request. No elaborate feast. Just whatever the prison is serving that day. At 5:50 p.m., guards escort Heath from his cell to the execution chamber. At 6:00 p.m.

, medical staff begin establishing IV lines in his arms. The process takes several minutes. Then, the drugs start flowing. Three chemicals designed to do one thing. End a human life as efficiently as possible. First, an anesthetic to render him unconscious. Then, a paralytic to stop his breathing. Finally, potassium chloride to stop his heart.

Heath lies on the gurney, eyes closed. He moves slightly. He gasps once. His face twitches into a brief frown. >> [clears throat] >> Then, stillness. The warden leans down and asks if he has any final words. Heath’s eyes remain closed, but he speaks. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say. Thank you.” Seven words. That’s all.

At 6:12 p.m., a physician checks for vital signs. There are none. Ronald Palmer Heath is pronounced dead. Among the witnesses in the viewing room are Thomas and Nancy Sheridan. They’re brother and sister to one of Heath’s victims. They’ve spent 37 years fighting for this moment, writing letters to governors, making phone calls, demanding justice.

Thomas Sheridan later gives a statement that’s both dark and defiant. He thanks the governor for ordering what he calls the Ronald Palmer cocktail, referring to the execution drugs, and jokes that it goes on his bar tab. For him, this isn’t about sadness or closure. It’s about a debt finally being paid.

 But here’s what makes this execution different from most. Ronald Palmer Heath maintained until his final breath that he didn’t deserve to die. Not because he was innocent, he admitted to his crimes, but because he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger. His younger brother Kenneth fired the shots that killed Michael Sheridan. Kenneth confessed to it.

 Kenneth testified to it in court. And Kenneth is still alive today, serving life in prison with the possibility of parole. And so, how did the brother who stabbed end up executed while the brother who shot got to live? To understand that, we need to go back 47 years to December 17th, 1977, to Jacksonville, Florida, to a 16-year-old boy who was about to commit his first murder.

Ronald Palmer Heath was born in 1961. By the time he turned 16, he was already troubled. Anger issues,  a drinking problem, a violent streak that terrified the people around him. On December 17th, 1977, Heath met an 18-year-old named Michael Green. They just met that same day, but they spent several hours together, appearing to become friends.

What exactly happened between them that day has never been fully clarified. Heath would later claim that Michael Green made sexual advances toward him, and that’s why he attacked. But there’s no way to verify that claim. And Michael Green can’t defend himself. What we do know is this: At some point that evening, Ronald Heath pulled out a knife and began stabbing Michael Green.

The initial wounds weren’t fatal. Green was badly injured, bleeding heavily, but still conscious, still alive, still begging for help. And here’s where the crime becomes truly disturbing. Instead of calling for help or fleeing the scene, Heath made a different choice. He dragged the severely wounded teenager to his car, shoved him inside, and started driving.

For over an hour, Ronald Heath drove aimlessly through the streets of Jacksonville with Michael Green bleeding out in his vehicle. Witnesses would later describe seeing Heath’s car circling neighborhoods, seemingly lost, as if he couldn’t decide what to do next. Was he panicking? Was he trying to figure out how to cover up what he’d done? Was he too terrified to confront the reality that he just stabbed someone? We’ll never know what was going through his mind during that hour-long drive.

What we do know is that eventually Heath stopped the car. He pulled Michael Green out onto the street, and he stabbed him again, multiple times. Then Heath did something that suggests this wasn’t just panic or self-defense. He tried to set his car on fire with Michael Green inside, attempting to destroy the evidence and burn the victim alive.

But, Michael Green wasn’t dead yet. Despite everything, the stabbings, the blood loss,  the hour in the car, the attempted burning, Green managed to escape the flames. He crawled away from the vehicle, desperately trying to survive. Heath saw him moving. He caught up to him, lying and he stabbed him again.

When the knife still didn’t finish the job, Heath picked up a tree branch and beat Michael Green to death with it. Blow after blow after blow until the 18-year-old stopped moving. Heath left the body at the scene and fled. The sheer brutality of what the 16-year-old had done shocked investigators.

 The prolonged nature of the killing, the multiple methods, stabbing, burning, beating, the fact that Heath had over an hour to stop, to call for help, to make a different choice, and instead chose violence again and again. When police arrested Ronald Heath, the evidence was overwhelming. His car, the blood, witnesses who’d seen him driving erratically, the body at the scene.

Heath’s attorneys knew they couldn’t fight the charges. Instead, they negotiated a plea deal. Heath pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. So, at just 16 years old, Ronald Palmer Heath was sentenced to 30 years in prison. 30 years. That’s what the judge decided was appropriate for beating an 18-year-old to death with a tree branch after stabbing him repeatedly and trying to burn him alive.

But, here’s the thing about sentencing. What a judge orders and what actually happens are often two very different things. Ronald Heath didn’t serve 30 years. He didn’t even serve 20 years. He served approximately 10 years. In 1988, after a decade in prison, Ronald Palmer Heath was released on parole. He was 28 years old.

He’d gone into prison as a teenage killer. He came out as an adult with a second chance at life. That second chance lasted exactly 6 months. May 24th, 1989. Gainesville, Florida. Ronald Heath, now 28, is at the Purple Porpoise Lounge, a local bar, with his with his younger brother Kenneth, who’s 24 years old. The Heath brothers live a transient lifestyle.

They work odd jobs when they can find them. They drink heavily. They drift from place to place with no real direction or purpose. That night at the Purple Porpoise, they’re not just looking for entertainment. They’re looking for a victim. Also at the bar is a man named Michael Sheridan. He’s 30 years old, a traveling salesman from Atlanta, Georgia.

He stopped in Gainesville for the night, grabbed dinner, and decided to have a few drinks before heading to his hotel. Michael Sheridan is friendly, outgoing, trusting. He strikes up a conversation with the Heath brothers. He buys them a round of drinks. At some point during the conversation, he asks if they have marijuana or know where he can get some.

That question seals his fate. Ronald Heath leans over to his younger brother Kenneth and whispers a suggestion. Let’s take this guy somewhere isolated and rob him. Kenneth agrees. The three men leave the bar together. Kenneth’s car is parked outside, but Ronald takes the driver’s seat. He drives them south of Gainesville into Alachua County, into a remote wooded area where no one will hear what’s about to happen.

They park the car. All three men get out and smoke marijuana together for several minutes. The scene is calm, almost friendly. Michael Sheridan has no idea what’s coming. Then Ronald decides it’s time. >> [clears throat] >> He makes a hand gesture to his brother, shaping his fingers like a gun, silently asking if Kenneth has the weapon.

Kenneth pulls out a .38 caliber revolver and aims it at Michael Sheridan. Give me your wallet. Your gold chain. Your watch. Now. Sheridan freezes. He’s confused. He thought these guys were his friends. He just bought them drinks. They just smoked together. What’s happening? He refuses.

 He doesn’t hand anything over. He’s in shock, unable to process that he’s being robbed by the men he trusted. Ronald nods at Kenneth. Kenneth fires. The bullet hits Michael Sheridan in the chest. He collapses to the ground clutching the wound, screaming in pain. Blood is pouring from his chest. He’s gasping, trying to breathe, trying to understand why this is happening.

As he lies there dying, he frantically tries to remove his jewelry and empty his pockets, hoping that if he just gives them what they want, they’ll let him live. But Ronald Heath isn’t satisfied with the pace. He walks up to Michael Sheridan, who’s writhing on the ground in agony, and kicks him.

 What’s then Ronald pulls out a hunting knife. He grabs Sheridan’s head and tries to slit his throat, but the knife is too dull. It won’t cut deep enough. The blade drags across Sheridan’s neck, causing a wound but not finishing the job. Frustrated, Ronald looks at his brother and gives another order. Finish him. Kenneth raises the revolver again.

 He fires two shots into Michael Sheridan’s head. Michael Sheridan dies in those woods along with the men who pretended to be his friends. The Heath brothers drag his body into thick brush covering it with branches and leaves. Then they drive back to the Purple Porpoise Lounge as if nothing happened. Over the next several hours they use Michael Sheridan’s stolen credit cards to go shopping.

They try to buy a car stereo, they purchase clothing, they steal items from Sheridan’s rental car parked at the bar. Michael Sheridan’s body wasn’t discovered until May 30th, 1989. Six days later. By that time decomposition had set in. The medical examiner determined that death had occurred between 3 to 10 days earlier caused by multiple gunshot wounds and a deep stab wound to the neck.

But the Heath brothers had already made their fatal mistake. Two days after murdering Michael Sheridan on May 26th, 1989 Ronald and Kenneth Heath were at it again. They met a 26-year-old man named Anthony Hammett at a bar in the Arlington neighborhood of Jacksonville. Same pattern, same method. Convince him to leave the bar.

Drive him to a secluded area. Rob him. When Hammett realized what was happening and tried to run, he was shot once in the back. He died on the spot. Ronald Heath was formally charged with Anthony Hammett’s murder. But here’s where the justice system failed again. Kenneth Heath refused to testify against his brother in the Hammett case.

He claimed he’d received threats against his life if he cooperated. Without Kenneth’s testimony, prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence to convict Ronald. The charges were dropped. Anthony Hammett’s family never got justice. The case remains officially unsolved, even though everyone involved knows exactly who killed him.

But the Michael Sheridan case was different. The Heath brothers made a crucial mistake. They tried to use one of Sheridan’s stolen credit cards to buy a car stereo at a store. The transaction was declined, triggering a fraud alert. That alert caught the attention of investigators from the Gainesville Police Department and the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office.

They began tracking every purchase made with Michael Sheridan’s credit cards. The trail led them to Oaks Mall, where the brothers had been shopping. Security footage, transaction records, witness descriptions, the evidence was piling up. Several weeks after the murder, police located Ronald Heath in Douglas, Georgia.

He was living in a trailer with a woman. When officers searched the residence, they found clothing purchased with the stolen credit cards, Michael Sheridan’s watch, and other items directly linked to the homicide. Ronald Palmer Heath was arrested and extradited back to Florida to face murder charges.

 Kenneth Heath was also arrested and charged as an accomplice. He both brothers were going to trial, but only one of them would end up on death row. Ronald Palmer Heath’s trial took place in 1990 in an Alachua County courtroom. The prosecution had physical evidence, the stolen property, the credit card transactions, the forensic evidence from the crime scene, but they needed something more to secure a death penalty conviction.

They needed someone who was there. Someone who could testify about exactly what happened in those woods. They needed Kenneth Heath. Prosecutors offered Kenneth a deal. Testify against your brother and we’ll take the death penalty off the table. Plead guilty, cooperate fully, and you’ll get life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

Kenneth took the deal. On the witness stand, Kenneth Heath described everything. How they planned to rob Sheridan. How Ronald drove them to the woods. How Ronald signaled him to pull the gun. How he shot Sheridan in the chest on Ronald’s orders. How Ronald tried to slit Sheridan’s throat with a knife. How Ronald told him to finish the job.

How he fired two more shots into Sheridan’s head. Kenneth’s testimony was devastating. But it also raised a troubling question. If Kenneth was the one who actually pulled the trigger and fired the fatal shots, why was Ronald the one facing  death? The answer came down to Florida’s felony murder rule  and the legal concept of principal versus accomplice.

Under Florida law, if someone commits murder during the commission of another felony, in this case  armed robbery, everyone involved can be charged with first-degree murder regardless of who actually pulled the trigger. But but prosecutors argued that Ronald was the mastermind. He initiated the robbery.

He drove them to the location. He gave the orders. He tried to kill Sheridan with a knife when the gunshots weren’t happening fast enough. Kenneth, they argued, was following his older brother’s instructions. The jury believed it. On November 15th, 1990, Ronald Palmer Heath was found guilty of first-degree murder.

Two days later, on November 17th, 1990, Judge Robert Kates sentenced him to death. The vote from the jury wasn’t unanimous. It was 10 to 2 in favor of death. Under Florida law at the time, that was enough. Ronald Palmer Heath was sent to death row. Kenneth Heath was sent to Tomoka Correctional Institution to serve his life sentence.

Kenneth became eligible for parole after 25 years. That was in 2015. Well, there’s no public record of him being released, but the possibility exists that he’s walking free today while his older brother is dead. Ronald Palmer Heath spent more than 35 years on death row at Florida State Prison. During those decades, his attorneys filed appeal after appeal.

 They argued that the trial was unfair. They argued that Kenneth should have faced the death penalty, not Ronald. They argued that a 10 to 2 jury vote wasn’t enough for such a severe sentence. The Florida Supreme Court rejected every appeal. In January 2026, they rejected his final appeal. On January 9th, 2026, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Ronald Palmer Heath’s death warrant.

It was the first execution order of 2026 in Florida, following a record 19 executions in 2025. The execution was scheduled for February 10th, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. And Heath supporters, including some death penalty activists, argued that he was being executed for a murder he didn’t commit. They pointed out that Kenneth fired the shots. Kenneth admitted it.

Kenneth testified to it. And Kenneth is still alive. But the courts disagreed. Under the law, Ronald Palmer Heath was just as guilty as the man who pulled the trigger. Some of the victim’s family members had mixed feelings. Kimberly Reeves, Anthony Hammonds’ sister, said that while Heath’s execution didn’t bring her brother back, she hoped Heath was at peace.

Rhonda Green, Michael Green’s sister, the first victim from 1977, said the execution didn’t make her happy, but it was a necessary form of justice. She added that it was horrendous it took so long. Thomas Sheridan, Michael Sheridan’s brother, had no sympathy. He’d been waiting 37 years for this moment. February 10th, 2026, was finally here.

Ronald Palmer Heath woke up on his last day at 7:00 a.m. He showered.  He read his Bible. He declined spiritual counseling from a chaplain. His mother visited. A long time friend visited. Both said their goodbyes. When asked if he wanted a special last meal, Heath declined.

 He ate whatever the prison was serving. At 3:00 p.m., guards removed him from his cell and began preparing him for the execution scheduled for 6:00 p.m. At 5:50 p.m., Heath was escorted into the execution chamber. He was strapped to a gurney. Medical staff worked to establish IV lines in both arms. At 6:00 p.m., the drugs began to flow. Heath lay still, eyes closed.

 His body twitched slightly. He gasped once. His face briefly contorted into a frown. Then he went still. The warden leaned down and asked if he had any final words. Without opening his eyes, Heath spoke, “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say. Thank you.” Then silence. At 6:12 p.m., after 10 minutes, a physician declared him dead.

 In the witness room, Thomas and Nancy Sheridan watched. After 37 years of waiting, fighting, and demanding justice, they finally saw Ronald Palmer Heath take his last breath. Thomas Sheridan’s statement afterward was pointed. He thanked the governor for the Ronald Palmer cocktail and joked that it went on his bar tab.

For the Sheridan family, this wasn’t about forgiveness or healing. It was about accountability. Ronald Palmer Heath killed his first victim at 16. He was released after 10 years. He killed again at 28. He spent 35 years on death row. And on February 10th, 2026, at age 64, he paid the ultimate  price.

 For three victims, Michael Green, 18 years old, Michael Sheridan, 30 years old, Anthony Hammett, 26 years old. One killer, finally gone. Justice delayed is justice denied. But yesterday in Stark, Florida, justice was finally served. What do you think about this case? Should Kenneth Heath have faced the death penalty instead? Let us know in the comments.

 And if you found this video informative, please subscribe to stay updated on more true crime cases. Thank you for watching.