Serial Killer of Gay Men Set for Execution in Florida

The governor of Florida has signed the death warrant of a confessed killer who murdered a number of gay men more than two decades ago, media reports say.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the order for death row inmate Gary Ray Bowles, clearing the way for the execution to proceed, reported Tampa Bay area news channel Fox 13.

Fox 13 recalled that Bowles was convicted of the murders of six men in total, all but two of them killed in Florida. Bowles strangled his victims but also carried out other acts of violence against some of them, shooting one man and smashing another in the head with a concrete block.

The killings stretched across nine months in 1994, Newsweek reported. Bowles was arrested after the November, 1994 slaying of a man named Walter Hinton. It was then that Bowles confessed to authorities the other five murders he had committed. He later pleaded guilty to three of the murders.

Newsweek reported that Bowles had picked up some of his victims in gay bars, soliciting money in exchange for sex. Bowles had resorted to sex work after fleeing what he said was an abusive home life at the age of 14.

Bowles' targeting of gay men was a factor in his trial. His conviction was later voided by the Florida State Supreme Court, but a subsequent retrial led to the same conviction and the same sentence of death. That was two decades ago.

DeSantis moved forward with signing the death warrant despite a plea from the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, who requested in an August 14, 2019 letter that the governor commute Bowles' death sentence to life in prison, reported floridapolitics.com.

"He is a human being who survived many years of childhood abuse and, after escaping his stepfather's violence as a young teenager, endured years of homelessness and child prostitution," the letter, which was signed by the group's executive director, Michael B. Sheedy, said.

"Intentionally ending Mr. Bowles' life is unnecessary," the letter continued. "Society can remain safe from any future violent actions of his thorough life-long incarceration without parole."

Bowles' execution is scheduled to take place on August 22.