Man Who Killed Traveling Salesman Set To Be Executed In FL

RAIFORD, FL — Ronald Palmer Heath, a 64-year-old Georgia man convicted of fatally stabbing a traveling salesman with a hunting knife and robbing him with his brother, is set to be executed next month in Florida.

Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed Ronald Heath's death warrant, setting the execution for 6 p.m., Feb. 10, at the Florida State Prison. This comes after a record-breaking year of 19 executions in Florida.

Heath is likely to be the first person executed in Florida this year. The state uses a three-drug cocktail for its lethal injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

According to court records, Ronald Heath and his brother, Kenneth Heath, met traveling salesman Michael Sheridan at a Gainesville bar in May 1989. After hanging out at the bar for some time, the three men agreed to go to another location to smoke marijuana, the Associated Press reported.

At some point, the brothers plotted to rob the other man, investigators said. Ronald Heath drove the group to a remote area, where Kenneth Heath pulled a handgun on Sheridan. The victim initially refused to give the brothers anything, and Kenneth Heath shot Sheridan in the chest, the Associated Press reported.

As Sheridan emptied his pockets, Ronald Heath began kicking the man and stabbing him with a hunting knife, prosecutors said. Kenneth Heath then shot Sheridan twice in the head, the Associated Press reported.

The brothers dumped Sheridan's body in a wooded area and returned to the Gainesville bar to take items from his rental car. The brothers made multiple purchases with Sheridan's credit cards the next day at a Gainesville mall, the Associated Press reported.

Ronald Heath was arrested several weeks later at his Douglas, Georgia, home after investigators connected him to the stolen credit cards. Officers recovered clothing purchased with the stolen cards, as well as Sheridan's watch, according to court records, the Associated Press reported.

Florida prison records on Monday showed Ronald Heath was convicted of first-degree murder/ premeditated or attempted, robbery with a gun or deadly weapon and 13 counts of forgery in Alachua County.

He was sentenced to serve 10 years on the forgery conviction and life on the robbery conviction. The death sentence was imposed for the murder conviction, prison records showed.

Kenneth Heath was also charged in the killing of Sheridan, but he was sentenced to life in prison as part of a plea agreement.

Advocacy group Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty are calling for Ronald Heath's clemency.

The group wrote:

"Ronald’s case reflects the same systemic failures that defined 2025: extreme disparities between co-defendants, a non-unanimous (10-12) jury recommendation, and reliance on incentivized testimony. His brother received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Ronald now faces execution in one month.

"This isn’t about relitigating the past — it’s about what kind of future Florida is choosing. Continuing executions at this pace continues the risk of irreversible error and deepens the trauma for everyone involved: victims’ families, corrections staff, courts, and communities. We don’t have to accept this as normal. A stay of execution is not weakness — it is responsibility."

DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions.

The Associated Press contributed reporting and writing.

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