STARKE, Fla. – A man who was convicted of murdering eight people in Miami-Dade County in the late 1970s has been executed at the Florida State Prison.
John Errol Ferguson died at 6:17 p.m. Monday, following a lethal injection.
The execution came after months of court appeals. Ferguson’s lawyers said that their client had a long history of mental illness and that it would be unconstitutional for the state to execute him.
The 65-year-old was convicted of murdering six people in a drug-related crime in 1977. All six were blindfolded, bound and shot in the back of the head.
Ferguson also was convicted in the 1978 murders of two Hialeah teenagers.