Miami, June 15 : Duane Owen, who was sentenced to death for the raping and murdering two women in 1984 in Florida's Palm Beach County, will be executed on Thursday after the US Supreme Court turned down his appeal to halt the capital punishment.

Duane Owen is scheduled to receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. EDT at Florida State Prison in Starke. He drew death sentences for the March 24, 1984, rape and stabbing attack on Karen Slattery, 14, and for the rape and killling of Georgianna Worden, 38, in May 1984, both in Palm Beach County.

Owen attacked two other women in Palm Beach County who survived. All four attacks occurred just before and after Owen’s 23rd birthday. Now 62, Owen is one of 293 people on Florida’s death row and one of the longest residing there. Besides his death sentences, he also received six life sentences.

If the lethal injection is carried out, it would be Florida’s fourth execution this year after none since 2019. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed each of the death warrants in the months before announcing he is running for president.