Finally, after spending more than 26 years on death row, Florida has just executed serial killer Daniel Owen Conahan by lethal injection. He was 72 years old and was known as the hogtrail killer. Stay with us in this video because today I’ll show you how this serial killer carried out his horrific crimes,  how his execution took place, and what his final words were before he died.

Daniel Owen Kahan Jr. was born on May 11th, 1954 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Punta Gorda, Florida, where he grew up in a middle-class household. According to the available records, he did not suffer any abuse or mistreatment during his childhood.

 However, during his adolescence, he realized that he was gay. On top of that, he was an extremely shy person and had great difficulty socializing and  forming relationships with others. In 1977, Kahan enlisted in the United States Navy and was assigned to the Great Lakes Naval Base in Illinois. It was there that some troubling behaviors began to emerge.

 According to reports from the time, he began harassing and spying on other sailors while they were showering. In 1978, he was administratively discharged after allegedly forcibly taking two sailors with the intention of forcing them to engage in sexual acts. After leaving the Navy, Daniel decided to study nursing at the Charlotte Vocational Technical Center, where he obtained his practical nursing license.

He worked as a nurse for some time, but his behavior began to concern his co-workers. According to several complaints, some workers reportedly saw him masturbating while wearing clothing that had belonged to patients and suffocating  himself in an attempt to reach orgasm. Following these incidents, he was fired.

 In 1993, Daniel returned to Punta Gorda to live with his parents and take care of them as both of them were elderly by then. Since he was primarily devoted to caring for his parents, he had quite a lot of free time. And during this period, his obsessive behaviors became increasingly frequent. He would often record himself while engaging in sexual acts and suffocating himself.

 His behavior also began to attract the attention of some neighbors  who considered him suspicious. According to testimony collected later, he was frequently seen leaving his parents’ house in the afternoons and returning in the early hours of the morning. In late 1993, Daniel met 27-year-old Gerald Jerry L. Lombard at a local bar.

 Lombard was originally  from Massachusetts where he had a home, a family, and children, but his severe addiction to alcohol had led him to become  homeless. On one of these occasions, Daniel offered him $100 in exchange for posing nude for photographs. Lumbard agreed  and Daniel took him to a remote area.

 There, he tied him to a tree, sexually assaulted him, and then strangled him with a rope until he died. On February 1st, 1994, two hunters who were following a group of vultures discovered the partially decomposed body of a white man in Port Charlotte. The body had rope burns  on the skin and pelvic region while the genitals had been removed.

 For many years, authorities were unable to determine the victim’s identity, so he was registered as a John Doe, the term used for the remains of a person whose identity is unknown. In 2021, more than two decades after the  discovery, DNA testing and genetic genealogy allowed investigators to identify him as 27-year-old Gerald Lombard, who  had disappeared in 1991.

But months later, another incident occurred that in retrospect was particularly disturbing. In August 1994, Stanley Burton, a 24 year old man who was also homeless, was in the area when a stranger named Daniel approached him and offered him between $100  and $150 in exchange for posing nude for bondage photographs.

Stanley agreed and the two left in Daniel’s car. The man drove him to the hog trail area and assured him that he would only take photographs. Once they arrived, he stripped Stanley and tied him to a tree. However, the situation quickly changed. Daniel sexually assaulted him and then attempted to strangle him.

 He took a rope, wrapped it twice around Stanley’s neck, and positioned himself behind the tree. He then braced one foot against the trunk for leverage, and pulled the rope backward with all his strength. For several minutes, Stanley fought to stay alive. Eventually, he managed to partially turn his body, preventing the rope from completely closing off his windpipe.

 This allowed him to resist, free himself, and escape. Unlike Lombard, Stanley survived and was  able to report the attack to the Fort Myers Police Department. He provided a description of the attacker’s physical characteristics, the car he was driving, and even told officers that the man’s name was Daniel. However, according to his account, authorities did not conduct an investigation that could have identified the perpetrator.

The incident is even more striking because just days after the attack, Daniel himself went to the same police department to report that his car had been stolen. There is one particularly disturbing and tragic detail in this story. Stanley Burden, the only known  survivor of an attack by Daniel, would also eventually become a sexual offender.

 In 1995, approximately 1 year after surviving the attack, Stanley was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Ohio for sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy. With investigators now aware of the area where Daniel had been operating  and the modus operandi he had used against Stanley Burden, the discoveries that followed began to take  on a much more disturbing meaning.

 On January 1st, 1996, a Northport family’s dog returned home carrying a human skull. Police responded to the scene and after searching a nearby wooded area, recovered additional skeletal remains. The body showed signs of severe mutilation. Because of  the advanced condition of the remains, investigators were unable to determine the exact cause of death.

 However, the circumstances surrounding the discovery led investigators to begin considering possible connections to other cases  in the area. On March 7th, 1996, a driver who stopped in a rural area near  Interstate 75 discovered the naked body of a man lying on his back with his arms extended, forming a sort of cross.

 The victim was later    identified as John William Melagno. He showed signs of having been restrained and of having attempted to escape before being pursued and murdered. But on April 17th, 1996, a discovery was made that would completely change the investigation.  County workers found a skull in a remote wooded area of Charlotte County.

 Because of the number of human  remains that had recently been discovered in similar areas, authorities decided to expand  the search. That decision proved crucial. Investigators found two additional bodies. One of them belonged to Kenneth Lee Smith, whose remains had been dismembered  and were partially decomposed.

 The second belonged to a young man who had been murdered just one day earlier. The victim was 21-year-old Richard Allen Montgomery. His body was found naked and showed liature marks around his neck, wrists, and waist, as well as signs of sexual assault. His genitals had been amputated, and the cause of death was determined to be strangulation.

Most importantly, however, was not where his body was found, but what Montgomery had said before he disappeared. Days before his death, Richard had told some friends and his mother that he expected to make a few hundred posing for photographs and that he had met a man named Daniel Conahan. It was not until that point that investigators went back and reviewed the report filed by Stanley Burton in 1994.

They found a series of similarities that were difficult to ignore. The offer of money in exchange for bondage photographs, taking vulnerable men to isolated areas, using ropes to tie them to trees, and attempts to strangle them. There was also another element that had already appeared in the investigation, Conahan’s car.

 As you may remember, Daniel had reported that his vehicle had been stolen. The man responsible for the theft was David Payton. As the investigation into the murders progressed,  Payton went to the police and told them that a man named Dan had picked him up and offered him money in exchange for photographs. According to his account, Conahan drove him down a dirt road where the vehicle eventually became stuck.

 That was when Payton noticed a camera, a blue tarp, and several ropes on the back seat. Realizing what was happening, he panicked  and fled the scene, taking the car with him. Later, Payton identified Conahan in a police lineup. With each new testimony, investigators were beginning to piece together an increasingly clear pattern.

 It was no longer simply a matter of bodies being discovered in the same region. There were victims with similar characteristics,  a recurring method of luring men, a name that appeared in one of the victim’s accounts, and other pieces of evidence that all pointed toward the same man. With these elements, police decided to launch an undercover investigation.

 On May 24th, 1996, an undercover officer was approached by Kanahan at a park. During the encounter, Conahan offered him money in exchange for sexual acts or for showing his genitals. To investigators, this behavior matched the pattern they had already identified in the accounts of other potential victims. On July 3rd, 1996, Daniel Owen Conahan Jr. was arrested.

 He was 42 years old at the time. During searches of his home and the vehicles he used, investigators found ropes, cameras, and Polaroid photographs that, according to authorities, documented acts of torture and assaults against his victims. In February 1997, Kahan was formally charged with kidnapping and first-degree murder in connection with the death of Richard Allen Montgomery.

 At that point, authorities did not have DNA evidence linking him to the other cases, and in some of them, they had not even been able to identify the victims. For this reason, the legal proceedings focused solely on Montgomery’s murder. The trial took place in 1999. Under the direction of Judge William Blackwell, the jury found Conahan guilty of premeditated first-degree  murder and kidnapping after just 25 minutes of deliberation.

 Stanley  Burden was the prosecution’s key witness. By then, he was incarcerated after  being convicted of sexual abuse. Authorities transported him to the courthouse to testify against Kahan. In front of the jury, Burton gave a detailed account of the attack he had suffered years earlier and explained how Kanahan had lured him to an isolated area with the promise of paying him to pose for photographs.

 After hearing the evidence and testimony, the jury unanimously recommended the death penalty. On December 10th, 1999, Judge William Blackwell formally imposed the sentence. However, although Conahan was convicted only of Richard Allen Montgomery’s murder, authorities continued to consider him the prime suspect in at least half a dozen additional deaths that occurred in the so-called hog trails between 1994 and 1996.

 Daniel spent approximately 25 years on death row while his attorneys filed various appeals and clemency requests in an effort to prevent his execution. However, all of them were rejected and eventually his execution was scheduled for September 10th, 2026. Today, Thursday, September 10th,  Kanahan woke up at 5:30 in the morning. He did not receive any visitors during his final hours, but  he did meet with a spiritual adviser who remained by his side and spoke with him throughout the  process leading up to the execution. His last meal consisted of

chicken, corn, a baked potato, a soft  drink, and pumpkin pie. At 5:00 p.m., Daniel was transferred to the execution chamber. According to officials, he  remained cooperative throughout the entire process and did not resist as he was prepared to receive the lethal injection. At 6:00 p.m.

, the curtains separating the execution chamber from the witness room  were opened. 11 family members of different victims were there to witness  Kanahan’s final moments. Just before the execution, he was asked if he wished to make a final statement. Conan replied, “No, sir, I have none.” After saying those words, an official administered the drug used for the lethal injection.

 12 minutes later, at 6:12 p.m., a doctor officially pronounced him dead. Daniel Owen Conahan Jr. died at the age of 72 after spending approximately a quarter of a century on death