STARKE, FL — Florida put Daniel Owen Conahan Jr. to death Thursday for the 1996 kidnapping and strangling of Richard Allen Montgomery, closing one of the state’s longest-running true-crime cases in a death chamber that has become the busiest in the nation this year.
Conahan, 72, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. after receiving a three-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He did not make a final statement, and the process moved quickly once the curtain to the chamber opened.
The execution made Conahan the 15th person Florida has executed in 2026. It also came as the state has carried out more than half of the 25 executions reported nationwide so far this year.
How the execution unfolded inside Florida State Prison
Corrections officials said Conahan was strapped to a gurney with an IV already in place when the chamber curtain went up at 6 p.m. A spiritual adviser stood near his feet and prayed throughout the procedure.
When asked whether he wanted to make a final statement, Conahan answered, “No sir.” The injection began at 6:01 p.m., after which he panted and briefly twitched before becoming still.
Several minutes later, the warden shook him and called his name. A medic entered at 6:11 p.m. to check for vital signs, and Conahan was declared dead one minute later. Florida officials say executions are carried out with a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart.
The 1996 killing that led to Conahan’s death sentence
Conahan was sentenced to die for Montgomery’s kidnapping and killing after a judge convicted him in August 1999 of murder and kidnapping. He had waived his right to a jury trial.
Authorities said Montgomery’s mutilated body was found in a wooded southwest Florida area where the remains of at least six people were recovered over a three-year period. Investigators later determined the killer was targeting homeless men.
Conahan argued that the evidence against him in Montgomery’s death was circumstantial. He was never charged in the other deaths, though investigators identified him as a person of interest in the wider series of killings.
How the Hog Trail Murders investigation grew across Charlotte County
The case began drawing attention after hunters found the first body in February 1994 in a wooded area of Charlotte County, north of Fort Myers. At least five more bodies were discovered over the next three years, many of them badly decomposed.
Because the bodies were found in swampy, wooded terrain, the killings became known as the “Hog Trail Murders.” Over time, the case moved from a local investigation to a subject of national true-crime coverage through television programs, podcasts and YouTube channels.
Investigators believed Montgomery’s remains were found within 24 hours of his death, unlike many of the other victims whose bodies were far more decomposed when discovered.
What detectives said linked Conahan to the killings
Detectives began focusing on Conahan in 1996 after a man in prison for stealing Conahan’s car said Conahan had taken him to a remote area and offered money for nude photos. The man said he drove away in Conahan’s car after seeing a knife.
Investigators later heard about a similar Fort Myers case in which a victim said a man who offered cash for nude photos tied him to a tree and tried to strangle him. That similarity helped lead to Conahan’s arrest, first on an attempted murder charge and later in Montgomery’s death.
In 2007, a survey crew found eight more bodies in Fort Myers. Authorities identified four of the victims as homeless and said they suffered injuries similar to those seen in the Charlotte County cases. Conahan was publicly identified again as a person of interest, but prosecutors never charged him in those deaths.
Victims’ families watch another Florida execution
Corrections officials said 11 family members of victims attended Thursday’s execution, though they would not identify whether they were connected to Montgomery or to other suspected victims in the Hog Trail case.
One relative of a victim, Joan Rodemann, said her family would celebrate Conahan’s death. Rodemann is the sister of William Melaragno, another Hog Trail victim.
Florida’s execution pace has been unusually high this year. The state carried out 19 lethal injections in 2025, a record since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, and it executed two prisoners in a single day in July for the first time in nearly a decade.
More Florida executions are already scheduled this month
Conahan’s death came as Florida continues to move through an unusually crowded execution calendar. Another execution is scheduled for Sept. 29, when Curtis Wilkie Beasley, 77, is set to die for the 1995 killing of a woman he was convicted of beating to death with a hammer and stealing her car.
The state’s role in this year’s national total has been especially large. Officials and prison records show Florida has accounted for more than half of the 25 executions carried out in the United States so far in 2026.
That pace has kept Florida State Prison in the spotlight as the nation’s busiest death chamber, even as the Hog Trail case continues to draw attention decades after the bodies were first found.
Victims’ families watch another Florida execution
Corrections officials said 11 family members of victims attended Thursday’s execution, though they would not identify whether they were connected to Montgomery or to other suspected victims in the Hog Trail case.
One relative of a victim, Joan Rodemann, said her family would celebrate Conahan’s death. Rodemann is the sister of William Melaragno, another Hog Trail victim.
Florida’s execution pace has been unusually high this year. The state carried out 19 lethal injections in 2025, a record since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, and it executed two prisoners in a single day in July for the first time in nearly a decade.
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