Florida executes death row inmate James Phillip Barnes with lethal injection for strangling his wife to death and raping a nurse before beating her with a hammer: Killer, 61, refused his final meal

A man convicted of strangling his wife and brutally murdering another woman in the late 80s has been put to death – after refusing his customary last meal.

James Phillip Barnes, 61, died by lethal injection at 6pm Thursday at Florida State Prison in Starke – the fifth person executed in the state this year.

Governor Ron DeSantis signed off on the con’s death warrant this past June, after he recently dropped all of his legal appeals and said he was set to accept his punishment after 16 years on death row.

While serving a life sentence for the 1997 strangulation of his wife Linda Barnes, Barnes confessed to the 1988 killing Patricia ‘Patsy’ Miller, a nurse who lived in a condominium on Florida’s east coast.

The confession came in the form of letters some eight years into his incarceration, sent to a state prosecutor. DNA evidence later linked him to the killing, and a jury ultimately sentenced him to death in 2007. He pleaded guilty.

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James Phillip Barnes, 61, died by lethal injection at 6pm Thursday at Florida State Prison in Starke – the fifth person executed in the state this year 

Barnes was serving a life sentence for the 1997 strangulation of his wife, 44-year-old Linda Barnes (pictured)

 One of the victim’s siblings, Andrew Miller, witnessed the execution and said he came to remember his sister. 

‘I did not come here to watch someone die. I came here to honor our sister, Patricia Miller,’ he told reporters afterward. ‘No one should live in fear within the safety of their own home. No woman, no child, no animal should have that fear. We did.’