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Florida executed Daniel Owen Conahan Jr. on Thursday (September 10) by lethal injection for the 1996 murder of Richard Montgomery. Known as the "Hog Trail Killer," Conahan was convicted of kidnapping and strangling Montgomery, whose body was found in a wooded area near Punta Gorda. Eleven of Montgomery's family members witnessed the execution, during which Conahan had no last words.
Conahan, 72, was suspected but never charged in the deaths of five other men in the mid-1990s. The case became infamous as the Hog Trail Murders due to the swampy locations where the bodies were discovered. The Guardian reports that Conahan was the 15th person executed in Florida this year, as the state has carried out over half of the 24 total executions in the United States in 2026.
Governor Ron DeSantis signed Conahan's death warrant on August 11, marking his 15th of the year. Conahan had spent 26 years on death row. According to Tallahassee.com, Conahan lured Montgomery to a remote area with a promise of payment for nude photographs. Montgomery's body was found the next day, tied to a tree and strangled.
Despite maintaining his innocence, Conahan was convicted of murder and kidnapping in 1999. His final appeal was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday (September 10). Florida's supreme court had also denied his appeal for additional DNA testing, ruling that it would not exonerate him.
Conahan's execution renews interest in the unsolved cases linked to the Hog Trail Murders. The Herald Tribune notes that Conahan was also linked to the Fort Myers Eight, a group of eight men whose remains were found in 2007, though he was never charged in those cases.