Florida set to execute ‘Hog Trail Killer’ for 1996 murder

Sept. 10 (UPI) — Florida is expected Thursday to execute a man believed to be the so-called Hog Trail Killer, who is suspected to have killed as many as 13 men along the state’s Gulf Coast in the 1990s.

Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection for the murder of 21-year-old Richard Allen Montgomery in April 1996. Montgomery’s naked body was discovered tied to a tree with robe burns. He had been strangled and his genitals cut off.

Montgomery’s remains were found in a wooded area of southwest Florida where the bodies of at least six people were discovered over three years. The crimes became known as the Hog Trail Murders because of the wooded, swampy areas where the victims were.

The state has carried out more than half of the 24 executions carried out this year in the United States. Conahan’s would be Florida’s 15th execution this year.

Conahan has maintained his innocence, but authorities have identified him as a person of interest in the other deaths. Conahan has never been charged in them and he has argued the evidence linking him to the crimes as circumstantial.

Hunters found the first body in February 1994, and five more were discovered over the next three years. Most of the bodies were severely decomposed, but investigators believe Montgomery was found less than a day after he died. Not all of the remains have been identified.

The victims were targeted because the men were homeless, according to investigators.

Conahan came to detectives’ attention after a man imprisoned for stealing his car said Conahan lured him to a remote area and offered him money for naked photos. The man said he drove off in Conahan’s car after he saw a knife.

Conahan waived his right to trial by jury and a judge convicted him in August 1999 of murder and kidnapping.

Florida’s Supreme Court last week rejected Conahan’s final appeal, which included a request for additional testing on the victim’s DNA. The court ruled Conahan would not be exonerated by DNA on his body from someone other than Montgomery.

A final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is pending.