Florida executed Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, on Thursday, marking the state's 15th execution of the year. Conahan was convicted of the 1996 kidnapping and strangulation of Richard Allen Montgomery. His death sentence was carried out by a three-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison.
Authorities identified Conahan as a person of interest in at least four other grisly murders discovered in a wooded area of Charlotte County, an area that became known as the "Hog Trail" due to the swampy conditions where bodies were found. The first body was discovered by hunters in February 1994, and at least five more were found over the subsequent three years, some severely decomposed.
While police believed Conahan was responsible for up to ten murders, he was never charged in any of them beyond Montgomery's. His conviction in Montgomery's death relied on circumstantial evidence, and Conahan maintained his innocence in that case as well. The investigation into Conahan intensified in 1996 after a man in prison claimed Conahan had lured him to a remote area and attempted to harm him. This led detectives to investigate similarities in another case where a victim reported a similar encounter. Conahan was arrested and charged with attempted murder, and later with Montgomery's death.
Conahan waived his right to a jury trial and was convicted by a judge in August 1999. Investigators noted the similarities between the victims found in the area and believed they were targeting vulnerable men, sometimes offering money to pose for photographs before luring them to secluded locations. In 2021, advancements in genetic genealogy identified one of the victims, Jerry Lombard, who had been missing since 1991. The identification of Lombard further focused attention on the potential number of Conahan's victims.
In 2007, skeletal remains of eight men, known as the 'Fort Myers Eight,' were discovered in woods in East Fort Myers. These victims also bore similarities to those found in Charlotte County, and Conahan was publicly identified as a person of interest in this investigation, though he was never charged. A criminologist noted the difficulty in ignoring the similarities between the cases.
Florida has carried out more than half of the 25 executions nationwide this year. Governor Ron DeSantis, whose term ends in January, has presided over a significant number of executions. Another execution is scheduled in Florida for September 29, that of Curtis Wilkie Beasley, convicted of murder and car theft in 1995. All executions in Florida are by lethal injection, consisting of a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug to stop the heart.