He killed his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend 50 years ago. Florida just executed him.

Florida has executed a 74-year-old inmate who spent five decades on death row for shooting his teenage ex-girlfriend seven times even as she begged for her life. It's the first of eight scheduled executions in the U.S. in September, the most in a single month since 2010.

The state executed Harold Gene Lucas by lethal injection on Tuesday, Sept. 1, for the 1976 murder of 16-year-old Jill Piper in Bonita Springs, halfway between Fort Myers and Naples on Florida's Gulf Coast. Lucas was 24 at the time of murder.

Lucas, who was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. ET, became the 14th inmate executed in Florida this year, by far the most of any state. Florida governor Ron DeSantis continues an aggressive death penalty push as the end of his term approaches.

Lucas chose to accept his execution and waive further appeals after DeSantis signed his death warrant in July.

“I am 75 years old," Lucas recently told a court, though his 75th birthday would have been on Halloween. "I've been on death row for 50 years, and I have no desire to carry this any further . . . The sooner it's over, the better I'll enjoy it. I am…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/