Man who stabbed Broward mother and her 4-year-old to death is set to be executed
A man who was convicted of stabbing a pregnant woman — and her 4-year-old daughter — to death inside their Broward apartment more than two decades ago could soon be executed.
Richard Knight, 47, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on May 21 after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his death warrant on Wednesday. In 2006, a jury convicted Knight of the brutal June 28, 2000, murders of Odessia Stephens, 24, and her 4-year-old daughter Hanessia Mullings.
Stephens, who worked as a clerk at a Fort Lauderdale hospital, was a model and attended Broward Community College, according to the Miami Herald’s archives. She became the target of Knight’s ire, prosecutors hinted during trial, because she wanted Knight out of her home.
Knight lived with Stephens, her boyfriend Hans Mullings and their daughter Hanessia in their apartment at 8409 Forest Hill Blvd. in Coral Springs, according to the archives. Knight, who is Mullings’ cousin, had stayed with them for about three months at the time of the double-murder.
Police found Stephens in her bedroom with more than a dozen stab wounds, according to police. Hanessia had also been stabbed repeatedly.
Stephens was six weeks pregnant when she was slain.
‘A brutal, brutal murder’
Several pieces of physical evidence at the crime scene linked back to Knight, according to the archives: DNA underneath Stephens’ fingernails — and blood on clothing located under a bathroom sink.
Investigators also uncovered four knives inside the apartment, prosecutors said during the trial. The blades of two butcher knives snapped off during the killing spree.
“This was a brutal, brutal murder,” prosecutor Tony Loe told jurors. “Knives were broken.”
On the day of the killings, police spotted Knight emerging from bushes in front of the apartment. But he was not indicted until a year later.
Early into the investigation, Knight was arrested for sexually abusing a minor. He was convicted in that case, but wouldn’t be sent to Florida’s Death Row for Stephens’ and Hanessia’s killings until 2007.
Awaiting execution
Knight is the eighth Death Row inmate to have an execution warrant signed this year. He is the first with a case stemming from South Florida.
In 2025, DeSantis signed a record-breaking — both for Florida and the U.S. — 19 death warrants. The governor is on pace to surpass that number in 2026.
READ MORE: Florida executed 19 death row inmates in 2025. That caused unusual national uptick
Knight is now being held at Florida State Prison in Raiford, where condemned inmates are sent as their execution date looms, prison records show.
Knight’s execution warrant was signed a day after the state executed Chadwick Willacy, convicted of beating his neighbor with a hammer and setting her on fire in 1990 in Palm Bay. This month, Willacy testified to spare the life of Miami killer Rafael Andres, who a jury said should be condemned to die for the beating, stabbing and strangling of a La Carreta waitress in 2005.
Part of Knight’s warrant paperwork, filed with the Florida Supreme Court, mistakenly included the name of James Ernest Hitchcock, who is scheduled to be executed on April 30 for the rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl in Winter Garden.
Knight will likely file final appeals to try to stop his execution.
This story was supplemented with information from the Miami Herald’s archives
