Arizona, Missouri, Mississippi and Florida will all carry out executions this week. The inmate’s victims include four family members, a female college student who was kidnapped from her bedroom, and a state trooper.
US expands death penalty methods
In modern history, most death row inmates faced one method of execution. There are now many other ways to die.
Four people are scheduled to be executed this week in the United States, in what is the busiest month for executions in nearly 15 years.
On Tuesday, October 14th, Missouri and Florida are scheduled to execute inmates within an hour of each other. Another execution is scheduled for the next day in Mississippi, and one in Arizona will take place on Friday. The inmate victims include a family of four, a female college student who was kidnapped from her bedroom, and a state trooper who was ambushed in his driveway.
Seven of these were executed this month. If all of this is brought forward, it would be the busiest month for executions in the United States since May 2011. That’s according to a USA TODAY analysis of a database maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that tracks the death penalty in the United States without taking a position.
The busy October comes amid an overall increase in executions in 2025, with experts attributing the rise to the political climate under President Donald Trump, and an expansion of execution methods. So far this year, the state has executed 35 inmates, a number not seen since 2014.
Here’s what you need to know about this week’s execution.
Lance Shockley of Missouri
Lance Shockley, 48, was convicted in 2005 of killing 37-year-old Sgt. Carl “Dwayne” Graham Jr. of the Missouri State Highway Patrol. Graham, the father of a 4-year-old boy at the time, was ambushed and shot in the back with a high-powered rifle as he arrived at his home in the small rural town of Van Buren. He was then shot in the head.
Prosecutors argued that Mr. Shockley’s motive for killing Mr. Graham was that he was being investigated as the prime suspect in a case where police left the scene of a fatal accident.
Shockley has always maintained that he is innocent of murder. At trial, his attorney told jurors there was no ballistic or physical evidence linking Shockley to Graham’s murder, no witnesses to the crime, no DNA and no confession.
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that the circumstantial evidence in the case was “strong” and sufficient to uphold the death sentence.
Mr. Shockley’s current lawyers are fighting for DNA testing of evidence in the case that was not available in 2005, and argue there should have been a mistrial due to misconduct by the jury foreman who shared his book about revenge killings with his fellow jurors.
So far, no court has allowed DNA testing, and last month the Missouri Court of Appeals refused to consider multiple briefs from forensic DNA experts in the case.
“There remain serious and unanswered questions about Lance Shockley’s guilt,” Shockley’s attorney, TC Tansky, said in a statement. “He was convicted on purely circumstantial evidence, questionable forensic methods, and a timeline that in no way matched the facts or testimony. Modern DNA testing could help answer those questions once and for all, but the state of Missouri rejects it.”
He added: “We will never know the truth until the evidence is tested.”
Shockley is scheduled to be executed in Missouri on October 14th, marking the state’s first execution in more than a year.
Samuel Lee Smithers of Florida
Samuel Lee Smithers, 72, was convicted of murdering two Tampa women, Denise Roach, 24, and Christy Cowan, 31, in 1996.
Smithers, a married deacon at a church in the Tampa suburb of Plant City, partially confessed to murdering two women who were sex workers and dumping them in a Plant City pond.
According to court records, Smithers told police that during an argument over money that Cowan had borrowed for sex, he hit her over the head with an ax, threw her into a pond and “finished her off” with a garden hoe.
Smithers told police he also got into an argument with Roach, punched her and threw her into a pond, but testified in court that he watched another man kill her. At trial, he blamed the man for Cowan’s murder and said Cowan had been blackmailing him.
Smithers’ current lawyers argue that executing the elderly violates constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment and no longer serves the original purpose of the death penalty.
Smithers is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on October 14th. He became the 14th inmate executed this year in Florida, a record.
Charles Ray Crawford of Mississippi
Charles Ray Crawford, 59, was convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering 20-year-old college student Christy Ray in 1993.
Crawford was on bail for assaulting two young women when he broke into Ray’s bedroom window at her parents’ home in the small rural town of Chalybeate. She was found stabbed to death in a nearby forest.
Ray was a student at Northeast Mississippi Community College.
The Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, part of the USA TODAY network, reported that at trial, Crawford’s attorney found Crawford guilty, laying the groundwork for an insanity defense, even though Crawford did not want to be in the case.
Crawford’s lawyers argued that he deserved a new trial because of the conduct of his trial attorney.
“Charles Crawford’s constitutional right to make the most basic choices about whether and how to protect his life and liberty was violated,” attorney Beth Windham said in court documents.
Crawford is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Mississippi on October 15, marking the state’s second execution this year.
Richard Jarf of Arizona
Richard Jarf, 55, was convicted of murdering a family of four in Phoenix in 1993: Albert Luna Sr., his wife Patricia Luna, and their two children, 17-year-old Rochelle and 5-year-old Damien. Gelf targeted his roommate Albert Luna Jr.’s family, believing them to have stolen from him.
Gelf admitted to tying up Patricia and Damian Luna while they were alone in the house. When Rochelle returned home, he admitted to tying her to a bed, raping her, and slitting her throat before going out and shooting Damien dead in front of his mother. When Albert Luna Sr. arrived at the house, Mr. Gelf attacked him with a bat and a scuffle ensued, during which Mr. Gelf was stabbed, he said. Gelf manages to end the fight by shooting Luna in the head.
Albert Luna Jr. was the one who discovered the bodies of his parents and brother.
In a handwritten statement provided to The Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network, Gelf said he had no intention of trying to stop the execution and that he hoped his death would “bring some peace” to the victims’ families.
“I broke into the Luna family’s home and brutally murdered four innocent people in a cruel, heinous and vile manner,” Jarf said in a statement. “I became so obsessed with revenge that I couldn’t think of anything else.”
Experts said they diagnosed him with brain dysfunction, but said that didn’t mean he deserved to live.
“The results of this test may help explain why I did what I did,” he wrote. “But they can never forgive me for the harm I caused.”
Gelf is the second execution this year in Arizona and is scheduled to be executed on Friday, October 17th.
Contributors: Elena Santa Cruz, Arizona Republic, Lici Beveridge, Mississippi Clarion Ledger
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers executions for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
