Ronald Heath was the 126th modern era person executed by Florida; paroled from prison for a previous murder he committed while a juvenile, he robbed and murdered a traveling salesman in Alachua County in 1989. Heath was a Jacksonville native born there on July 6, 1961. His father Bill Heath was a manager at a car dealership and an ex-Jacksonville police officer and his mother Vivian was a homemaker. He had a younger brother named Ken. The Heaths by all accounts were an average middle class family and Ronald was a more-or-less normal child up until he started puberty, when he began to change.By age 13, Heath had begun skipping school and committing petty thefts. His parents took him to a psychiatrist who recommended they encourage him to read more and watch less TV as well as take up sports. He also began using drugs, which his parents did not know about until a few weeks before the first murder he committed, when he passed out on the living room floor and had to be rushed to a hospital. The doctor though Ronald had ingested Valium and didn't think it was anything serious, but later on he made an unsuccessful suicide attempt and said he felt he couldn't do anything right.On December 17, 1977, sixteen year old Heath beat and stabbed to death 18 year old Michael Green and set his car on fire. He would later claim that Green had made homosexual advances on him, but the latter's family denied that he was gay. Regardless, the victim had been subjected to considerable brutality, which prosecutor Michael Obringer said was "more akin to a mutilation than a murder." Heath pled guilty to second degree murder and got 30 years in prison. His prison tenure was uneventful; his family made semi-regular visits and he earned his GED and took college courses.
He was paroled in February 1988 after serving ten years and went to Georgia, where he got a welding job on a submarine base at King's Bay, which he performed well and reliably. Just after Heath's release, he met a legal secretary named Penny Powell and began dating her; they did not formally marry, but considered themselves a de-facto husband and wife. Heath moved into Powell's mobile home in Douglas late in the year. He had a good relationship with Powell's two sons and they considered him a father figure. After his stint at the naval base, Heath worked for Comet Enterprises. He also established a close relationship with his brother Ken, although the two had never been especially close as kids.On May 24, 1989, the Heath brothers went to the Purple Porpoise, a bar in Gainesville, Florida, and met Michael Sheridan, a 30 year old traveling salesman who was in town on business. They befriended Sheridan and asked if he wanted to go with them and smoke some marijuana. He got in their car with them and they drove to an isolated spot outside town. There, at Ronald's urging, Ken got a gun from the car and informed Sheridan that this was a robbery. The latter initially thought it was just a prank, but instead Ken fired a single shot into his chest. Sheridan finally realized they meant business and began to hand over all his valuables including his wallet and jewelry. Ken became impatient that he wasn't moving fast enough and began kicking him. While this was going on, Ronald got a knife from the car and tried unsuccessfully to stab Sheridan in the throat; the knife was too dull and wouldn't cut. He then ordered his brother to shoot him again. Ken fired two rounds into his head, killing him.
They moved the body into some bushes and left the scene. The brothers drove back to Gainesville, got Sheridan's rental car from the parking lot of the Purple Porpoise, stole a few items from it, and set it on fire. The next day they took Sheridan's credit cards and went on a shopping spree at a Gainesville mall. They quit using them after a store clerk asked personal questions about Sheridan they didn't know the answers to and went back to Jacksonville. They tossed the murder weapon in a river and returned to Heath's trailer in Georgia.Sheridan's body was found on May 30; it had experienced a not insignificant degree of decomposition from laying outdoors in hot Florida weather. Autopsy of the body estimated the time of death as between three and ten days ago and that the decedent had succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds as well as a cut to the neck. The murder was traced to the Heath brothers after their use of Sheridan's credit cards was found out. Penny Powell invited police to search her trailer and they found some of the clothing items they'd purchased in Gainesville as well as Sheridan's watch. Store clerks from the mall identified the brothers in a police lineup. They were charged with forgery as well as the murder itself. Ken agreed to plead guilty and accept a sentence of 25 to life in exchange for testifying against his brother. He also claimed that Ronald had bullied and mentally and physically abused him when they were children.Ronald Heath was found guilty of first degree murder on November 15, 1990 and sentenced to death despite the defense's claim that Ken was the real mastermind and his brother just carried out his orders.
There was more. Ken admitted that he and Ronald had killed a second victim in a robbery two days after Sheridan's murder. The M/O was nearly identical; they met Anthony Hammett, 26, in an Arlington bar, befriended him, drove him to an isolated spot, and shot him. Prosecutors were going to also charge the Heath brothers with that murder, but dropped the charges after Ken agreed to testify against Ronald in the Sheridan murder. Hammett's family considered this action insulting as it suggested the prosecution considered his life unimportant.The appeals process dragged on over the years and the end finally came when Heath was executed by lethal injection on February 10, 2026, Florida's first execution of the year.
>>18347360>>18347354>first guy he killed was supposedly gay>the Purple Porpoise sure sounds like a name a gay bar would have>Sheridan supposedly wore a lot of jewelry>both victims had an 80s gay 'stacheObvious gay bashing incident although they seem to not want to say it.
tf man. why couldn't boomers help themselves with killing people?
>beat a guy to death>get out in 10 years
>>18347682Yes that was the 70s-80s. What about it?
