Mark James Asay (March 12, 1964 – August 24, 2017)
was an American
spree killer
A spree killer is someone who commits a criminal act that involves two or more murders in a short time, often in multiple locations. There are different opinions about what durations of time a killing spree may take place in. The United States ...
who was
executed by the state of Florida for the 1987
racially motivated murders of two men in
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...
. He was convicted, sentenced to death, and subsequently executed in 2017 at
Florida State Prison by
lethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium) for the express purpose of causing death. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but t ...
. Asay's execution generated attention as it was noted by multiple news agencies that he was the first white person to be executed in Florida for killing a black person. He was also the first person to be executed in the United States using the drug
etomidate
Etomidate (United States Adopted Name, USAN, International Nonproprietary Name, INN, British Approved Name, BAN; marketed as Amidate) is a short-acting intravenous anaesthetic agent used for the induction of general anaesthesia and sedation for ...
.
Murders
On July 17, 1987, Asay, his brother Robbie, and friend Bubba, visited multiple bars in
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...
, where they drank beer and played pool. After leaving a bar in the early hours of July 18, the three men decided to head downtown to find some prostitutes. Once there, Robbie began speaking with another man, 34-year-old Robert Lee Booker, who was black. Asay grew angry and started shouting racial slurs at Booker. After the two got into a confrontation, Asay took out a gun from his back pocket and shot Booker once in the abdomen. Booker ran from the area but succumbed to his gunshot wound. The bullet penetrated Booker's intestines as well as an artery, which caused internal hemorrhaging. Booker's body was found later that day under the edge of a house. Robbie fled the area after the shooting while Asay and Bubba left in a truck. When Bubba asked him why he had shot Booker, Asay responded, "Because you got to show a
nigger
In the English language, ''nigger'' is a racial slur directed at black people. Starting in the 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been increasingly replaced by the euphemistic contraction , notably in cases where ''nigger'' is Use–menti ...
who is boss." Asay did not believe he had killed Booker after shooting him.
Afterward, Asay and Bubba continued to look for prostitutes. Bubba then spotted a prostitute whom he only knew as "Renee" who he believed would give them oral sex. Both men were unaware that Renee was actually a 26-year-old mixed-race white and Hispanic man named Robert McDowell, who dressed as a woman. After speaking with McDowell, the two negotiated a deal for oral sex. Bubba drove himself and Asay to a nearby alley and McDowell followed them. Once there, Asay left the truck so Bubba and McDowell could have sex. As McDowell got into the truck, Asay suddenly returned, grabbed McDowell's arm, pulled him from the truck, and shot at him. Asay shot McDowell six times as he attempted to escape. Asay and Bubba then drove away, with Asay claiming he shot McDowell because "the bitch had beat me out of ten dollars on a blow job." McDowell's body was found on the ground in the alley not long after the shooting. According to a medical examiner, McDowell had been shot three times in the chest cavity, any of which would have been fatal.
Capture and trial
Asay later told two acquaintances that he shot McDowell because he had allegedly cheated him out of ten dollars in a drug deal. The acquaintances also testified that Asay had claimed to shoot McDowell four times in the chest and that he shot him again once he had fallen to the ground.
As a result of tips from the two acquaintances and McDowell's murder being featured on a television crime watch segment, Asay was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. He was ultimately found guilty of both murders and the jury recommended he receive the death penalty. As such, the trial court imposed a sentence of death for each conviction.
On November 18, 1988, Asay was sentenced to death for the murders of Booker and McDowell, receiving a separate death sentence for each murder.
Asay was prosecuted by
Bernie de la Rionda, which at the time, was his first death penalty-eligible case. Asay's death sentences were upheld in 1991 and 2000.
Asay later admitted to a Jacksonville television station that he killed McDowell but maintained his innocence in the murder of Booker.
Execution
Asay was first scheduled to be executed on March 17, 2016. However, on March 2, the
Supreme Court of Florida
The Supreme Court of Florida is the state supreme court, highest court in the U.S. state of Florida. It consists of seven justices—one of whom serves as Chief Justice. Six members are chosen from six districts around the state to foster geog ...
halted the execution after the
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...
ruled that Florida's death penalty laws were unconstitutional, a ruling that was made in January 2016 following ''
Hurst v. Florida''. Asay's execution warrant had been signed by Governor
Rick Scott
Richard Lynn Scott ( Myers; born December 1, 1952) is an American attorney, businessman, politician, and United States Navy, Navy veteran serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States senator from the state of F ...
prior to the ruling in early January. On July 3, 2017, following months of Florida's death penalty laws being left in legal limbo, Scott signed Asay's execution warrant, scheduling him for execution on August 24, 2017.
Asay was to be executed via
lethal injection
Lethal injection is the practice of injecting one or more drugs into a person (typically a barbiturate, paralytic, and potassium) for the express purpose of causing death. The main application for this procedure is capital punishment, but t ...
. The execution method that was to be used included two drugs that had never been used before in a Florida execution:
etomidate
Etomidate (United States Adopted Name, USAN, International Nonproprietary Name, INN, British Approved Name, BAN; marketed as Amidate) is a short-acting intravenous anaesthetic agent used for the induction of general anaesthesia and sedation for ...
, an anaesthetic agent used for the induction of
general anaesthesia
General anaesthesia (UK) or general anesthesia (US) is medically induced loss of consciousness that renders a patient unarousable even by painful stimuli. It is achieved through medications, which can be injected or inhaled, often with an analges ...
and
sedation
Sedation is the reduction of irritability or agitation by administration of sedative drugs, generally to facilitate a medical procedure or diagnostic procedure. Examples of drugs which can be used for sedation include isoflurane, diethyl ether, ...
and which had never been used anywhere for an execution, in lieu of
potassium acetate
Potassium acetate (also called potassium ethanoate), (CH3COOK) is the potassium salt of acetic acid. It is a hygroscopic solid at room temperature.
Preparation
It can be prepared by treating a potassium-containing base such as potassium hydroxide ...
, which had been used only once before in the United States, by accident, in an Oklahoma execution. The lethal injection combination was new, due to states struggling to acquire the drugs needed for lethal injection.
Asay's lawyers tried arguing that the new combination of drugs violated his constitutional right to an execution free from cruel and unusual punishment. Ultimately, the Supreme Court of Florida rejected the appeal and said he had failed to show that was likely.
On August 24, 2017, Asay was executed at
Florida State Prison via lethal injection, in which the new drug combination was used. He was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. and made no final statement. His
last meal
A condemned prisoner's last meal is a customary ritual preceding execution. In many countries, the prisoner may, within reason, select what the last meal will be.
Contemporary restrictions in the United States
Contrary to the common belief t ...
consisted of fried pork chops, fried ham, French fries, vanilla swirl ice cream, and a can of Coke.
No one from his family witnessed the execution. It was the first execution in Florida in over nineteen months, since
Oscar Ray Bolin was executed in January 2016. A
Florida Department of Corrections
The Florida Department of Corrections (FDC) is the government agency responsible for operating state prisons in the U.S. state of Florida. It has its headquarters in the state capital of Tallahassee.
The Florida Department of Corrections oper ...
official later stated that the execution had occurred without any incident and that Asay did not speak or show any indication of pain during the execution procedure.
Asay's execution marked the first time in Florida state history that a white person was executed for killing a black person, something that had never happened before in Florida since capital punishment first began in the state in 1769. Only one of Asay's was black, the other victim (McDowell) being a mixed-race white and Hispanic man, but during Asay's trial, the court mistakenly believed McDowell was also black. This caused the Supreme Court of Florida to issue a rare not long before Asay's execution, in which they acknowledged that for more than twenty years they had mistakenly believed that McDowell was black.
The court apologized for the error but ruled that their mistake had no bearing on the overall outcome of Asay's death sentence.
See also
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Capital punishment in Florida
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Florida.
Since 1976, the state has executed 112 convicted murderers, all at Florida State Prison. As of June 11, 2025, 270 offenders are awaiting execution.
History
Prior to 1923, ...
*
Capital punishment in the United States
In the United States, capital punishment (also known as the death penalty) is a legal penalty in 27 states (of which two, Oregon and Wyoming, do not currently have any inmates sentenced to death), throughout the country at the federal leve ...
*
List of people executed by lethal injection
*
List of people executed in Florida
The following is a list of people executed by the U.S. state of Florida since capital punishment was resumed in the United States in 1976.
The total amounts to 112 people. Of the 112 people executed, 44 have been executed by electrocution and 68 ...
*
List of people executed in the United States in 2017
Twenty-three people, all male, were executed in the United States in 2017, all by lethal injection. The state of Arkansas executed four people in April, ending a hiatus on executions in the state which had lasted for over 11 years. Virginia conduc ...
*
List of white defendants executed for killing a black victim
Executions of white defendants for killing black victims are rare. Since the reinstatement of capital punishment in the United States in 1976, just 21 white people have been executed for killing a black person (less than 1.36 percent of all execu ...
*
Race and capital punishment in the United States
The relationship between race and capital punishment in the United States has been studied extensively. As of 2014, 42 percent of those on death row in the United States were Black. As of October 2002, there were 12 executions of White defendant ...
References
! colspan="3" ,
Executions carried out in Florida
, -
! colspan="3" ,
Executions carried out in the United States
{{DEFAULTSORT:Asay, Mark
1964 births
2017 deaths
20th-century American criminals
21st-century executions by Florida
21st-century executions of American people
American male criminals
American people executed for murder
American white supremacists
Criminals from Jacksonville, Florida
Executed people from Florida
People convicted of murder by Florida
People executed by Florida by lethal injection
Racially motivated violence against African Americans in Florida