The last words of Florida death row inmate executed Tuesday evening for murdering a young mother in 1994 expressed his love for his wife by quoting the cult classic film, The Princess Bride.
Anthony Wainwright, 54, and his accomplice Richard Hamilton kidnapped 23-year-old Carmen Gayheart from a supermarket parking lot before driving her to a wooded area, where they raped and killed her.
Hamilton, while serving on Florida’s death row, died in prison in 2023. But Wainwright lived long enough to be executed Tuesday at around 6pm via lethal injection.
In his final statement, Wainwright spoke of ‘beautiful wife’ and the support the couple has enjoyed throughout his several legal appeals.
‘My beautiful wife Samantha, you are the love of my life. I’m so blessed we found each other. The years we have spent together have been beyond wonderful,’ Wainwright said. ‘They’ve been downright magical. Love is stronger than death and I know our love will last for eternity.’
‘I wanted to thank everyone who has supported my wife Samantha and I. It has truly been overwhelming. It has meant so much to us both,’ he added.
He concluded with a quote from The Princess Bride, specifically a statement uttered by the character Westley, played by Cary Elwes, to his romantic interest Buttercup, played by Robin Wright.
‘Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while,’ the convicted murderer and rapist told his wife.
Death row inmate Anthony Wainwright, 54, used a romantic quote from the Princess Bride as his final words to his wife, Samantha (pictured with him)
Wainwright did not apologize to the family of Carmen Gayheart (pictured), the 23-year-old mother-of-two he and an accomplice raped and killed in 1994
Wainwright stopped short of apologizing to Gayheart’s family, only telling them that he hopes ‘my death brings you peace and healing.’
He also railed against what he deemed a broken court system.
‘The court system is broken. Especially in Florida. Please continue the fight. Because I can promise you they are not going to let up. They will continue to murder if we continue to let it happen,’ Wainwright said.
He then tore into his attorney, Baya Harrison, who has represented other death row inmates in Florida.
‘I hope that nobody forgets how terrible of an attorney Baya Harrison has been to all of us guys on the row and how terrible he represented me for so many years. He might be Florida’s worst attorney,’ he said.
Gayheart’s older sister, Maria David, sat front and center when Wainwright took his last breaths on Tuesday.
‘Carmen was so scared for her life in her final moments, thinking, “This is it. I’m gonna die.” And I can only hope that fear is something he’s feeling now, too,’ David told the Daily Mail.
‘She died in a horrific way… it kills me what they did to my baby sister. So I’m glad this is the last time I’ll ever see him, and the last time I’ll ever have to think about Anthony Wainwright.’
Carmen Gayheart is pictured on her wedding day with her sister Maria David (left). Tonight, David watched her sister’s killer take his final breaths from the front-row of an execution chamber
Rev. Jeff Hood, Wainwright’s spiritual advisor, told the Daily Mail that he was terrified of dying.
Hood also advised Greg Hunt, an Alabama death row inmate who was executed the same day as Wainwright. Hood said that since Hunt appeared to be accepting of his fate, he chose to stay with Wainwright in his final moments.
Wainwright skipped his last meal because he felt that it ‘would distract him from his family and the people that he loved,’ Hood said.
‘He found a place of perfect peace. He stopped seeing his execution as an end but rather as a new beginning. He was ready to get out of prison – I kept on telling him that this was his release date,’ Hood said.
The Associated Press reported that the execution began at about 6:10pm. That’s when Wainwright’s shoulders shuddered a few times.
Hood said that ‘this was not as clean of a lethal injection as the others that I’ve seen,’ adding that ‘it was not bad enough to say that it was botched.’
Wainwright blinked and took several deep breaths before going completely still at 6:14pm. He was officially pronounced dead at 6:22pm, according to a spokesperson for Governor Ron DeSantis.
Hood told the Daily Mail that he was the only person who knew Wainwright that was present for his execution. None of his family members attended.
‘This is the tenth execution I’ve been to. It’s really like being kicked in the nuts,’ he said. ‘I’ve been close with Anthony for four years now. He’s not somebody I just met. He mattered a great deal to me… and then to have to watch them be murdered right in front of you… It’s horrifying and it’s enraging.’
Wainright was executed via lethal injection and was officially pronounced dead at 6:22pm on Tuesday, according to a spokesperson for Governor Ron DeSantis
Wainwright and Hamilton escaped from prison in Newport, North Carolina, on April 24, 1994.
Wainwright was serving 10 years for breaking and entering, while Hamilton was to be behind bars for 25 years after he committed an armed robbery.
They stole a Cadillac and burglarized a home the following morning, stealing money and guns, before heading south towards Florida.
It was when the Cadillac started having mechanical issues three days and 600 miles later that the men decided to steal another car. That’s when they spotted Gayheart.
Gayheart was about to set off to collect her five-year-old daughter and three-year-old son from daycare when she was ambushed and abducted by the two men.
Her remains would be found five days later, on May 2, 1994, off a dirt road in Hamilton County. She had been shot twice in the back of the head with a bolt-action rifle.
Wainwright and Hamilton, meanwhile, continued on the lam in Gayheart’s blue Bronco before they were eventually snared 520 miles away in Mississippi the day after her murder following shootout with police. Both were shot but survived.
Initially, Wainwright told police that he raped Carmen and that Hamilton killed her. They led police to her body.
Gayheart was about to set off to collect her five-year-old daughter and three-year-old son from daycare when she was ambushed and abducted by Wainwright and his accomplice, Richard Hamilton
Wainwright and Richard Hamilton (pictured right) were convicted of murder, kidnapping, robbery and rape, with the jury unanimously recommending they be sentenced to death by the electric chair
At their trial in 1995, each attempted to point the finger of blame for the rape and murder at the other.
Both men were convicted of murder, kidnapping, robbery and rape, with the jury unanimously recommending they be sentenced to death by the electric chair.
Wainwright’s lawyers have filed multiple unsuccessful appeals over the years based on what they said were problems with his trial and evidence that he suffered from brain damage and intellectual disability.
Since his execution was scheduled last month, his lawyers have argued in state and federal court filings that his death should be put on hold to allow time for courts to hear additional legal arguments in his case.
In a filing with the Supreme Court, his lawyers argued that his case has been ‘marred by critical, systemic failures at virtually every stage and through the signing of his death warrant.’
Those failures include flawed DNA evidence that wasn’t disclosed to the defense until after opening statements, erroneous jury instructions, inflammatory and inaccurate closing arguments, and missteps by court-appointed lawyers, the filing says.
David said she isn’t buying Wainwright’s latest revision of events. She said she heard the evidence against him first-hand and there is no doubt in her mind that he both raped and killed her younger sister.
If anything, David said the killer should be grateful that he’s being given the lethal injection, rather than the electric chair as was previously ordered.
Maria David, Gayheart’s sister, told the Daily Mail that she struggles with the fact that Gayheart (pictured) suffered when she died, while her killer will ‘get an injection that puts him off to sleep’
‘He’s getting off easy,’ David told the Daily Mail. ‘I’m sad it’s not the electric chair.’
‘He’s going to get an injection that puts him off to sleep like you’d do for your family’s sick dog, the dog you loved with all your heart.
‘Carmen suffered… but he’s taking the easy way out. He’s had 31 years breathing, phone calls, letters, all of that – everything he robbed Carmen of.’
David said that the three decades she has been waiting to see Wainwright held ‘accountable’ is far too long.
During that time, she lost both of her parents. Her father died in 2013, and her mother died in 2022. Both had wanted to witness Wainwright’s death, she said.
‘I know they’re going to be with me in spirit today, for both me and Carmen, so we can see this through together,’ David said.
Before her sister’s callous murder, David held no strong opinions about the death penalty. It was only after Gayheart was killed that she says she understood the ‘need’ for capital punishment.
‘When you are so closely tied to the victim of a horrific crime like Carmen, you change your opinion. You want to see it happen because they deserve it,’ added David.
‘We didn’t ask to seek the death penalty. The state came to us and told us they were going to go for it…I absolutely have to see this through,’ she said prior to the execution.
