13 things about US Army veteran Kayle Bates from West Palm Beach, Florida

Kayle Barrington Bates grew up in Riviera Beach, Florida, United States then moved to West Palm Beach, Florida. He is the 10th inmate executed in the state in 2025.

BIOGRAPHY

After being an active-duty U.S. Army soldier for four months, Bates served honorably in the Florida National Guard for six years. He also worked as a truck driver for Jim Walter’s Paper Company, delivering products to customers.

Bates is Jack Bates and Inez Williams‘s first child, Jewell Thomas‘s nephew and Cleveland Williams and Eleanor Walker Bates‘ stepson. In 1965, Kayle’s younger sister Susan Thomas Bates was born.

Kayle was also known as Maud Dib Al Sharif. Here are 13 more things about him:

1. After his parents divorced in 1967, his mother married Cleveland and his father married Eleanor.
2. In 1971, he was referred for a psychological evaluation, his parents requested testing and the results gave him a full scale of intelligence quotient score of 83.
3. In 1976, he graduated from high school and joined the U.S. Army.
4. In 1977, he spent four months on active duty at the Infantry Training Center of the U.S. Army at Fort Benning in Georgia, USA.
5. In 1978, he lived with his father and Eleanor in Tallahassee, Florida for four months then moved into an apartment with Eleanor’s daughter Diedre Walker and Diedre’s roommate Renita Bookman and started dating Bookman.
6. In 1979, he married Bookman in the Leon County Courthouse and she gave birth to their first child Aleah Bookman Bates.
7. As a Jim Walter’s Paper Company employee, he received four merit raises between 1979 and 1982.
8. In 1982, he and Renita bought a new house while they were expecting their second child, his anticipated promotion to sergeant in the National Guard was denied and he killed Randy White‘s wife Janet Renee White, 24.
9. In 1983, he filed his first direct appeal with the Florida Supreme Court after being sentenced to death by an all-white jury.
10. In 1985, his death sentence was vacated then reinstated.
11. In 1993, he turned to Islam in prison and became dedicated to studying the Quran, according to James Driscoll Jr., one of his attorneys.
12. In 1995, he filed a direct appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, which affirmed his death sentence in 1999.
13. In 2025, he declined to say last words before his execution and he died at age 67.

TIMELINE

Cleveland and Susan had good relationships with their stepparents. Growing up, they would spend summers with their father and Eleanor and Cleveland taught Kayle how to fish.

1970s

• In June 1976, Kayle graduated from high school and ranked 409th in a class of 458. Right after his graduation, he took the U.S. Army entrance examination and failed.
• In December 1976, Kayle retook the exam and scored the bare minimum on the U.S. Army aptitude test, which allowed him to enlist as an infantryman.

1980s

• On June 14, 1982, he abducted Janet from the State Farm insurance office in Bay County, Florida where she worked, took her into a wooded area behind the building, tried to sexually assault her, fatally stabbed her and stole her diamond wedding ring from one of her fingers.
• On January 20, 1983, he was charged with kidnapping, armed robbery, attempted sexual battery and first-degree murder.
• On January 21, 1983, a jury by a vote of 11 to 1 recommended the death sentence for his murder conviction.
• On March 11, 1983, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempted sexual batter, life in prison for both kidnapping and armed robbery and death for first-degree murder.
• On July 22, 1985, he was resentenced to death.

1990s

• On July 23, 1992, Chief Judge DeDee S. Costello vacated his death sentence after finding that he had been denied the effective assistance of counsel at the sentencing phase of his capital trial.
• In January 1995, his resentencing proceeding ended in a mistrial.
• On January 30, 1995, he filed a petition for a writ of prohibition or a writ of mandamus and a stay pending review requesting a pretrial ruling on the applicability of the life without parole sentencing option. The petition was denied by the court.
• He suffered from mild organic brain damage, according to Dr. James Larson‘s testimony in a deposition in February 1995.
• On May 25, 1995, a jury by a vote of 9 to 3 recommended his death sentenced.
• In a sworn affidavit dated July 24, 1995, he said, “I hereby make a knowing and intelligent waiver in perpetuity of my eligibility for parole. I will not seek or accept parole. I choose to spent the remainder of my natural life in prison.”
• On July 25, 1995, he was resentenced to death.

2020s

• On February 19, 2025, he turned 67.
• On July 29, 2025, his attorneys filed a civ­il suit against 46th Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who signed his death warrant, and claimed that Florida’s exe­cu­tion war­rant process ​was infect­ed with racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and uncon­sti­tu­tion­al arbi­trari­ness.
• On August 12, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida dismissed the lawsuit filed by his attorneys on July 29, 2025.
• At 6:01 p.m. on August 19, 2025, he received a lethal injection and at 6:17 p.m., he was pronounced dead. Randy, then 70, was one of the witnesses to the execution.