Florida Governor Sets Execution Date for Killer of 6 Gay Men

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has set the execution of Gary Bowles for August 22 at 6 pm. Bowles received the death penalty for the 1994 murder of Walter Hinton, but later confessed to the murder of five additional gay men whom he said he killed because of their sexual orientation.

FOX 13 reports: “In November 1994, Bowles helped Hinton move from Georgia to his mobile home in Jacksonville. In exchange, Hinton let Bowles live with him. One night, while Hinton slept, Bowles dropped a concrete block on his head, causing a fracture from Hinton’s right cheek to his jaw. Hinton woke up, but Bowles then strangled him to death. After Bowles’s arrest, police say he confessed to killing Hinton, as well as the other men. Bowles reportedly confessed to beating and strangling another roommate, John Hardy Roberts, in Daytona Beach; strangling David Jarman and then stealing his car in Wheaton Maryland; strangling 72-year-old Milton Bradley and dumping his body on a golf course near his home in Savannah, Georgia; and strangling and shooting Albert Morris in Hillard Florida.”