As a stay is in place for an execution scheduled for Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued the death warrant for a man convicted of raping and murdering his brother’s 13-year-old stepdaughter nearly 50 years ago.
The warrant calls for James Ernest Hitchcock, 69, to be executed by lethal injection on May 7, according to documents posted on the Florida Supreme Court website.
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DeSantis has signed seven death warrants this year. Four have been carried out.
Court documents show that on July 31, 1976, Hitchcock raped his step-niece, Cynthia Driggers, in her bedroom in Orange County. When Driggers threatened to tell her mDuckett from his execution stayother, Hitchcock took her outside and strangled her, leaving her body in the bushes. Hitchcock walked back inside, showered, and went to bed.
During his trial, Hitchcock claimed that the sexual act was consensual and that his brother, who entered the bedroom shortly after, strangled the girl.
In his initial sentencing in 1977, the majority of the jury recommended death. In subsequent resentencings, the jury voted for death 7-5 in 1988, 12-0 in 1993, and 10-2 in 1996.
The warrant comes as the Florida Supreme Court refused the state’s plea to release James Aren Duckett’s stay of execution on Monday, ruling that the pending DNA testing to prove the former police officer’s innocence was “inconclusive.”
Duckett was slated to be executed on Tuesday.
Monday’s injunction required a status report on all pending problems by 5 p.m. on Thursday.
Last Thursday, the majority of the court agreed to the stay, in part because Duckett was awaiting post-conviction DNA testing, which he claimed would “provide newly discovered evidence of his actual innocence.”
Duckett, 68, was convicted of raping and murdering 11-year-old Teresa McAbee in May 1987. Duckett was a police officer for the Lake County city of Mascotte when McAbee died.
Chadwick Willacy, 58, remains scheduled for execution on April 21 for the 1990 murder of his Palm Bay neighbor, who discovered him burglarizing her home.
Ronald Heath, 64, was executed on February 10 for a 1989 murder outside Gainesville.
Melvin Lee Trotter, 65, was executed on February 24 for the June 1986 murder of Virgie Langford, 70, who was discovered by a truck driver on the floor at the back of Langford’s Grocery Store in Palmetto.
Billy Leon Kearse, 53, was killed on March 17 for killing Fort Pierce police officer Danny Parrish during a 1991 traffic encounter.
Michael King, 54, was executed on March 17 for the 2008 murder of Denise Amber Lee, 21, a North Port resident.
Florida carried out 19 executions in 2025, setting a modern-era record. The modern era refers to the period since the death penalty was resumed in 1976, following a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision that stopped it.
