MIAMI, United States (AFP)—A 63-year-old man convicted of the 1988 rape and murder of his former store manager was executed by lethal injection Thursday in the US state of Florida.

Richard Randolph was put to death at 6:12 pm (2312 GMT) at a state prison in the town of Raiford, the Florida Department of Corrections said in a statement.

Randolph was sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder of Minnie McCollum, the manager of a convenience store where he once worked.

He raped and murdered the 62-year-old McCollum after she caught him trying to break into the store’s safe, according to court documents.

Florida has carried out more executions this year — 17 — than any other US state.

There have been five each in Alabama and Texas.

With Randolph’s execution, there have now been 44 executions in the United States to date in 2025 — the most since 2010, when 46 inmates were put to death.

Thirty-six of this year’s executions have been carried out by lethal injection, three by firing squad and five by nitrogen hypoxia. This last method involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.

The use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment has been denounced by United Nations experts as cruel and inhumane.

The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.

President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and, on his first day in office, called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”