RAIFORD, Fla. – A man convicted of killing a police officer 35 years ago was executed Tuesday, making him Florida’s third execution of the year. Billy Leon Kearse was 18 years old when he shot a Southeast Florida police officer, hitting him 13 times before fleeing. He never disputed his guilt.
Kearse, 53, was put to death by a three-drug lethal injection cocktail inside the Florida State Prison’s execution chamber. He was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m. Tuesday after 22 minutes.
He declined his last meal and met with a spiritual adviser before his execution, according to Jordan Kirkland, the Florida Department of Corrections communications director.
Kearse, covered in a white sheet with tubes in his arms, was carted on a gurney into the execution chamber, a small white room with mirrors and brown curtains.
“I sincerely apologize for what I have done,” he said, according to witnesses of the execution. “There is no way I can repay that.”
Kearse was condemned in 1991 for the murder of Officer Danny Parrish of the Fort Pierce Police Department in St. Lucie County.
Parrish is survived by his wife, Mirtha Busbin, 60, a victim advocate at the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office. His father, Marion Parrish, passed away in October 2013 from Alzheimer’s, and his mother Fay Parrish died in October 2018 from dementia.
Busbin said the scene at the 1991 hearing was dramatic and emotional, but when Kearse was given a chance to speak before his sentencing, she said he turned to her, smiled and winked. That was the moment she decided she would see Kearse’s execution to its end.
“This is not about liking death row. This is not about killing another human,” she said. “This is about justice for Danny.”
Here is how the crime unfolded, according to decades’ worth of court records in the case: After noticing a car driving in the wrong direction down a one-way street, Parrish pulled over the car Kearse was driving on Jan. 18, 1991. When stopped, Kearse didn’t provide a license and gave Parrish fake names.
Parrish asked Kearse to get out and put his hands on top of the car. As Parrish was trying to handcuff him, Kearse grabbed Parrish’s gun and shot him 13 times. Nine shots hit his body, four struck his bullet proof vest.
Kearse drove away and police arrested him later that night at the address on his license plate registration.
Parrish died that night. He was 29 years old.
Jim Tedder, 75, who is a retired Fort Pierce Police Department lieutenant, was the lead investigator on the homicide.
When he received the phone call that an officer was shot and arrived on the scene, he said he recognized it as one of the most important cases a detective could ever have.
“I still relive it, or portions of it, every single day,” he said.
Tedder said it was challenging to put his emotions aside during interviews of Kearse, but he had support. Nearly every officer at the Fort Pierce Police Department, along with their spouses, lined the hallway that evening waiting to hear what happened.
After setting a record in 2025 for the state with the most executions, beating the closest other states by 14, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has continued signing death warrants with two executions already completed in 2026.
Barbra J. Pariente, 77, is a former chief justice on the Florida Supreme Court and was one of three on the bench in 2000 to join the dissenting opinion against the death penalty for Kearse. Since the initial ruling, Pariente has worked against the execution.
During her time on the court from 1998 until 2019, Pariente said she participated in more execution cases than any other justice.
If the law suggested the death penalty, with no questions about guilt, she voted in favor of it.
“I am not in favor of the death penalty, but I have to separate my personal opinions from my obligations at the time as a Supreme Court justice,” she said.
Pariente said there was no question he was guilty, but he had borderline IQ and had just turned 18. She said it was a question of mitigation.
In late 2025, she wrote a letter, along with Justice Harry L. Anstead who authored the dissenting opinion, arguing that Kearse deserved leniency. Shortly after, DeSantis signed the death warrant.
Father Philip Egitto, 67, travels from Daytona Beach to lead prayers outside the prison. He said his group attended all 19 executions last year and the three so far this year.
“It’s not justice, it’s just revenge,” he said.
Egitto said he believes society would be safe without the death penalty. Life without parole allows people the opportunity to change, he said.
Through 35 years of proceedings, Busbin, Parrish’s widow, said she sat through 11 trials as Kearse tried to appeal his conviction and ask for resentencing.
In 2022, she was notified by the Florida attorney general’s office that Kearse had exhausted all his options. Still, no execution date was set, so she said she began writing letters to DeSantis.
Her efforts were rewarded when the governor signed the death warrant on Jan. 29, giving Kearse’s attorneys 33 days to delay his execution.
On Tuesday afternoon, a stay of execution, which would have delayed the enforcement of the death penalty, was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“There are so many cases on death row that, to me, Danny was just another file in the filing cabinet,” Busbin said. “Everyone that helped me write a letter, I owe them all my life.”
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