He stabbed a mom and her 4-year-old to death. Florida just executed him

Florida has executed a death row inmate for the 2000 stabbing deaths of a pregnant woman and her 4-year-old daughter.

Richard Knight, 47, was executed by lethal injection on Thursday, May 21, for the murder of Odessia Stephens and her 4-year-old daughter, Hanessia Mullings, in their home in Coral Springs. He was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. ET.

Knight's execution came just hours after Tennessee botched an inmate's execution because of difficulties finding an intravenous line, prompting an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who was there to question the doctors' qualifications. In a rare move, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee granted the inmate, Tony Carruthers, a one-year reprieve.

Knight's attorneys sought an emergency stay of execution with the Florida Supreme Court following Tennessee's failed execution, saying that Carruthers "was in agony and bleeding."

"Tennessee and Florida have similar provisions setting the range of qualifications required of execution team membersresponsible for gaining venous access," Knight's attorneys wrote. "Before another botched execution is allowed to take place, this time in Florida, Mr. Knight submits that a stay of execution is warranted in order to allow his counsel to investigate the Tennessee situation and raise the necessary challenges to Mr. Knight’s execution based on that information."

The court denied the request and allowed the execution to proceed.

Here's what you need to know about Knight's execution, including his last words and last meal. (Read more about the failed Tennessee execution here.)

What was Richard Knight convicted of?

On June 27, 2000, Richard Knight attacked Odessia Stephens and her 4-year-old daughter, Hanessia Mullings, when Stephens tried to kick him out of her house in Coral Springs, where he had been living. Stephens was the girlfriend of Knight's cousin, who was not home during the brutal attack.

Knight used knives he got from the kitchen and stabbed Stephens repeatedly, and then strangled and stabbed Hanessia. He then continued his attack on Stephens by strangling her and stabbing her, according to court records.

Autopsies found that Stephens had 21 stab wounds, including 14 in the neck, and was covered in defensive wounds, while her daughter had four stab wounds in her chest and neck. Stephens was six weeks pregnant with her second child at the time, The Sun-Sentinel reported.

The crime scene investigation found Stephens' blood on Knight's shirt, his bloody clothes under the sink, and Knight's DNA was found underneath Stephens' fingernails.

Hans Mullings, Knight's cousin and Hanessia's father, said that Knight "deserves to die for what he's done," according to The Sun-Sentinel.

“I just wish he died in a graphic way," Mullings said after sentencing. "They suffered a lot and he won’t. … He’s just going to be put to sleep and he’s gone.”

Knight's attorneys had been arguing that his execution should be delayed to allow testing on a fingerprint of one of the knife blades used in the attack. They also challenged the way Florida conducts its lethal injections, arguing that the state allows "unqualified" execution team members to perform a surgical technique to access veins without local anesthesia. The Florida Supreme Court recently rejected those arguments.

Richard Knight's last words, last meal

Richard Knight declined to request a last meal and his last words were brief, according to the Associated Press.

He said: “I want to give thanks to Yahweh, who is the most high.”

Execution is Florida's seventh of the year

Knight's execution was the 14th in the U.S. this year and the seventh in Florida, by far the most of any state.

Florida has continued to execute an unusually high number of inmates, a trend that began last year when longtime Gov. Ron DeSantis started signing death warrants at a record pace, saying he wanted to give closure to families who've been waiting decades for justice.

The state executed 19 inmates last year, breaking its previous record of eight executions in one year (set in 1984 and 2014). No other state came close to Florida's amount of executions in 2025. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas each had the second most executions of the year at five each.

When is the next execution in the U.S.?

The next scheduled execution in the U.S. is in Florida. The state is set to execute Andrew Richard Lukehart for killing 5-month-old Gabrielle Hanshaw and dumping her body in a pond in Jacksonville in 1996.

Contributing: C. A. Bridges, the USA TODAY Network-Florida's service journalism Connect team.

Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers the death penalty, cold case investigations and breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat