A man convicted of murdering an 18-year-old college student who was camping with his sister at the Ocala National Forest in 1994 was executed on Thursday evening, exactly one month after Governor Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant.
Loran Kenthsley Cole was executed by the state of Florida at 6 p.m. on Thursday, August 29. The execution was watched by over two dozen witnesses and members of the media.
Cole’s execution comes 30 years after he was convicted of murdering John Timothy Edwards, a student at Florida State University.
Edwards and his sister were attacked while camping at a site in the Ocala National Forest on February 18, 1994.
Leading up to the attack, Cole and his accomplice, William Christopher Paul, posed as brothers and offered assistance to help the siblings.
Cole and Paul helped the siblings set up their campsite before walking with them to a pond. En route to the pond, Paul attacked Edwards’s sister. As he tried to defend his sister, Edwards was attacked by Cole, who slit his throat and fractured his skull.
Edwards’s sister was taken back to the camp site, where she was raped that evening by Cole and Paul. The next morning, Edwards’s sister was raped again before she was tied to a tree by the two men. They then fled the scene.
Two days after the attack, on February 20, 1994, Edwards’s sister was able to free herself from her restraints and set out to find her brother but was unable. His body was eventually found by law enforcement officers later that day.
Both Paul and Cole were arrested a short time thereafter.
Paul eventually pled guilty to several felony charges and was sentenced to life in prison. Cole was sentenced to death.
On July 29, 2024, Governor DeSantis signed Cole’s death warrant, scheduling the execution for August 29 at 6 p.m. by lethal injection.
In the weeks since the death warrant was signed, Cole was unsuccessful in his appeals to the Florida Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court.
