Florida Set to Execute 'Hog Trail Killer'
Florida Set to Execute 'Hog Trail Killer'
The News
Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., the man authorities identified as Florida's "Hog Trail Killer," is scheduled to be put to death Thursday for a 1996 murder — one of a string of killings investigators believe may number 13 or more.
Conahan, 72, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 6 p.m. ET on Thursday, Sept. 10, for the 1996 kidnapping and strangling of 21-year-old Richard Allen Montgomery.
He would be Florida's 15th execution this year. The state has carried out more than half of the 24 executions in the United States so far in 2026, under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who leaves office in January.
Conahan was convicted in 1999 of murder and kidnapping in Montgomery's death. He was never charged in any of the other killings, though authorities publicly named him a person of interest. He has always denied killing anyone.
The Case Against Him
Montgomery's nude body was found tied to a tree on April 16, 1996, covered in rope burns and strangled. His genitalia had been cut off. Prosecutor Bob Lee told the court in 1999 that it was "a death which occurred solely for the pleasure of the defendant," according to an archived story in The News-Press.
The key witness was Stanley Burden, who told police that on Aug. 15, 1994, Conahan offered him up to $150 to pose for nude bondage photos in a wooded spot, then tied him to a tree, tried to sexually assault him and strangled him with rope for about half an hour before giving up and walking away. Burden freed himself and reported the attack. Police found the scene, including a tree with markings that matched his injuries and his account, according to court records. At trial he pulled down his shirt collar to show the scars on his neck.
Conahan, a 42-year-old out-of-work nurse at the time of the investigation, acknowledged in court that he had a bondage fetish. "Just because I have been found guilty in a court of law doesn't mean I am guilty," he said at his 1999 sentencing, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
Timeline
Two hunters following buzzards find a naked, partially decomposed man's body in the woods of Port Charlotte, on Florida's Gulf Coast. He is not identified until 2021, as Gerald "Jerry" Lombard, a drifter from Lowell, Massachusetts.
Stanley Burden tells police a man lured him into the woods with an offer of cash for nude photos, tied him to a tree and tried to strangle him.
A dog finds a human skull in North Port, about five miles northwest of where Lombard was found. Police find more remains at the scene.
Richard Allen Montgomery is killed. Investigators believe he had been dead less than a day when found.
Utility workers come across a human skull in a remote, heavily wooded stretch of Port Charlotte. Police find more remains, including one body so recently killed that authorities checked for a pulse. Montgomery is among five victims found there — all naked, mutilated and left in desolate spots.
Conahan is arrested after more than two years of investigation by local and state law enforcement. The killings had already been dubbed the "Hog Trail Murders," after the swampy game trails where the bodies turned up.
Conahan is convicted of murder and kidnapping in Montgomery's death and sentenced to die.
A survey crew finds human remains in a wooded area of Fort Myers, about 30 miles southeast of the earlier sites. Crime scene units from across Florida uncover eight bodies within a 200-yard radius — one of the state's largest excavations of human remains. Conahan, already on death row, is publicly named a person of interest. He is never charged.
The Florida Supreme Court denies Conahan's stay of execution and his final appeals.
Execution scheduled for 6 p.m. ET.
Reactions
Conahan's attorneys argue he was convicted on circumstantial evidence, that no DNA has ever tied him to Montgomery's crime scene, and that new testing of hair, cigarette butts and fingernail clippings would clear him. "Law enforcement wanted Mr. Conahan to be the true killer, and made him so," they wrote in a recent filing to the Florida Supreme Court, arguing that modern testing "would reveal the true perpetrator."
They also attack their client's accuser. The defense says Burden has since admitted he testified against Conahan to get a shot at parole on his own prison sentence for raping a 12-year-old boy in Ohio — a rape Burden pleaded guilty to — and that he lied on the stand about his motives. "Burden and Montgomery sustained different injuries and there is no credible evidence to suggest their cases are connected," the attorneys wrote.
The Florida Supreme Court rejected the DNA argument on Sept. 3, ruling that it was already known at trial that Conahan's DNA was not found on any evidence, and that finding someone else's DNA now would not change the outcome. "This is true because the cigarette butts Conahan seeks to have tested again were found in an open field known for being a trash site and thus a repository for others' DNA," the court wrote.
The Florida Attorney General's Office told the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 9 that Conahan "did not meet his burden that additional testing would either exonerate him or lessen his sentence," and that his arguments do not present "a compelling reason why a last-minute stay outweighs Florida's interest in enforcing its laws."
What's Next
One appeal stands between Conahan and the death chamber: an application for a stay filed with the U.S. Supreme Court. "Mr. Conahan does not ask to be declared innocent at this posture," his attorneys wrote on Sept. 7. "Nor does he ask to be released from prison. All he asks is for this Court to stay his imminent execution."
If the justices decline, nothing stands in the way of the 6 p.m. execution. The other Hog Trail cases — including the eight bodies found in Fort Myers, four of whom have never been identified — remain unsolved, and police have named no other suspects.
More
Florida runs the nation's busiest death chamber. Of the 47 people executed in the United States in 2025, Florida carried out 19 by lethal injection — a state record since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. In July the state executed two prisoners in a single day, the first state to do so in nearly a decade.
The killer targeted men on the margins. Investigators concluded he was going after homeless men; the victims identified in Fort Myers were homeless, and several of the others were known to have transient lifestyles. No clothing was found at the Fort Myers site and there was no sign the men had been stabbed or shot, which investigators took as an indication they had been strangled. A sheriff's office report concluded the victims found within a 10-mile radius in Charlotte County were likely killed by the same person.
Poll
Should Florida carry out the execution, or grant a stay for new DNA testing?
Charleston White Arrested Again on Florida Battery Charge
Border Patrol Rescues MS NOW Crew in Desert
Sep 13, 2026
Supreme Court Restores Missouri's Old House Map
Sep 13, 2026
Alaska Drops Felony Voter Charges Against Samoans
Sep 13, 2026
Trespasser Breaches Harris' Malibu Estate; No Arrest
Sep 12, 2026
Hegseth Pressed Downed Airmen Into 60 Minutes
Sep 12, 2026
Houthis Seize Mokha, Choking Saudi Oil Exports
Sep 12, 2026
Altman Rules Out OpenAI IPO This Year
Sep 12, 2026
Jury Acquits Lil Durk in Murder-for-Hire Case
Sep 12, 2026
Judge: Trump Broke Law Halving FEMA Staff
Sep 12, 2026
Maher Calls Democrats' Gaza Genocide Claim a Lie
Sep 12, 2026
Blizzard Revives StarCraft, Sends Diablo to Netflix
Sep 12, 2026
Trump's Queens Childhood Home Sells for $1.93M
Sep 12, 2026
Scientists Find New Virus in Tick Invading US
Sep 12, 2026
Britain Bans Settlement Imports; US States Threaten Payback
Sep 12, 2026
Prison Fire Kills 7 as Kurds Protest Killing
Sep 12, 2026
Kosovo Rallies for Ex-President Before Hague Verdict
Sep 12, 2026
Cruz Booed at GameDay Over College Sports Bill
Sep 12, 2026
Blast Hits Bulgarian Arms Plant Supplying Ukraine
Sep 12, 2026
DOJ Loses Nearly Every Protester Assault Trial
Sep 12, 2026
Sep 13, 2026