Mark Allen Geralds, aged 58, is slated for execution by lethal injection on December 9 at Florida State Prison.

Should this proceed, Geralds will become the 18th individual to be executed in Florida in 2025, marking a significant increase under Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration. This year’s execution numbers surpass those of any previous Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

The prior record was established in 2014, with eight executions carried out that year.

Governor DeSantis authorized Geralds’s death warrant just a week before the scheduled execution of Bryan Fredrick Jennings on November 13. Additionally, another execution is planned for November 20, with Richard Barry Randolph set to face the death penalty.

Geralds was convicted of murder, armed robbery, burglary and grand theft auto and sentenced to death in 1990. The Florida Supreme Court later vacated the sentence but affirmed the conviction, and Geralds was resentenced to death in 1993.

According to court records, Tressa Pettibone’s 8-year-old son found her beaten and stabbed to death on the kitchen floor of their Panama City home in February 1989.

Geralds had previously done remodeling work at the home and knew the family’s schedule, including when the children went to school and that Pettibone’s husband would be out of town for work. Investigators found that Geralds pawned jewelry with traces of Pettibone’s blood on it, and plastic ties used to bind Pettibone matched ties found in Geralds’ car.

Attorneys for Geralds are expected to file appeals to the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.

So far 41 people have been executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida leads the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. The state’s most recent execution was the Oct. 28 lethal injection of Norman Mearle Grim Jr., who was convicted of raping and killing his neighbor.