Florida executes man convicted in fatal shooting of police officer with his service revolver in 1991
A man convicted of fatally shooting a police officer with his own service weapon during a traffic stop was executed Tuesday evening in Florida, becoming the third person put to death by the state this year after a record 19 executions in 2025.
Billy Leon Kearse, 53, was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was condemned for the 1991 shooting death of Fort Pierce Police Officer Danny Parrish.
The execution started just after 6 p.m. When a warden asked Kearse if he had any final words, he said all he could do was ask for forgiveness from Parrish's family.
"To his family, I sincerely apologize for what I've done," Kearse said. "There is no way I can ever repay that."
More than a dozen family members and police officers gathered to observe the execution.
Kearse twitched briefly after the lethal drugs began entering his system, but stopped moving several minutes later. It was another quarter of an hour before a medic entered the room and pronounced Kearse dead.
After the execution, Parrish's widow, Mirtha Busbin, said she has found peace.
"It's been a long, long 35 years," said Busbin. "We didn't win anything, though; we lost another life, but we did get justice."
Busbin, who works as a victim advocate for the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office, said she didn't expect Kearse to apologize, but she did appreciate it.
"I can forgive him, I can move on," Busbin said. "It was the right thing to do."
The Florida Supreme Court found that the trial court failed to give jurors certain information about aggravating circumstances and ordered a new sentencing. Kearse was resentenced to death in 1997.
This is Florida's third execution scheduled for 2026, following a record 19 executions last year.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The highest number before then was eight executions in both 1984 and 2014, under former governors Bob Graham and Rick Scott, respectively.
According to court records, Fort Pierce Police Officer Danny Parrish pulled over Kearse for driving the wrong way on a one-way street in January 1991. When Kearse couldn't produce a valid driver's license, Parrish ordered Kearse out of his vehicle and attempted to handcuff him.
A struggle ensued, and Kearse grabbed Parrish's firearm, prosecutors said. Kearse fired 14 times, striking the officer nine times in the body and four times in his body armor. A nearby taxi driver heard the shots and used Parrish's radio to call for help.
Parrish was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died from the gunshot wounds, officials said. Meanwhile, police used license plate information that Parrish had called in before approaching Kearse to identify the attacker's vehicle and home address, where Kearse was arrested.
Last week, the Florida Supreme Court denied appeals filed by Kearse. His attorneys had argued that he was unconstitutionally deprived of a fair penalty phase and that his intellectual disability makes his execution unconstitutional.
Final appeals were pending Tuesday before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025.
Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis, far outpacing Alabama, South Carolina and Texas which each held five executions.
Besides the two Florida executions this year, Texas and Oklahoma have each executed one person so far.
Two more Florida executions have already been scheduled for this month. Michael Lee King, 54, is scheduled to die on March 17, and the execution of James Aren Duckett, 68, is set for March 31.
All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.