A Florida man who killed a woman in a 1989 home invasion has been executed. The man’s death marks the 18th death sentence that was carried out in the state. Mark Geralds was 58 years old when he was put to death by a lethal injection.
Geralds took the life of a woman named Tressa Pettibone in her own home in Panama City. The murder took place in February 1989. Her 8-year-old son was the one who discovered her body in the kitchen on the unfortunate day.
Court records reveal that the woman was beaten up and stabbed to death. Gerald wasn’t a stranger to the family. He had completed a remodeling job for the family home as their carpenter.
Mark Geralds ( See my Twitter)#MarkGeralds executed by Florida State on December 9, 2025.. pic.twitter.com/zOXGHgaBa8
— Attika (@Attika_t) December 9, 2025
Official documents detail exactly how the man planned out his crime before executing it. He had coincidentally run into Tressa and her two children at a shopping mall before the murder. The woman mentioned that her husband would be out of town.
Geralds then found Tressa’s son at an arcade and pressed him for details. The 8-year-old divulged details about exactly when he and his sister went to school and returned. The murderer also confirmed the father’s absence from the house before carrying out the heinous crime.
Authorities discovered pawned jewelry that had the victim’s blood on it. The jewelry was traced down to Gerlads. Later, plastic ties similar to the ones that Tressa was bound with were found in his car.
The man’s death warrant was finally signed last month decades after he committed the murder. He was executed at 6:15 pm at the Florida State Prison in Raiford. The sentence was given after Gerald himself said that he did not wish to pursue any more legal appeals, according to a report by ABC News.
BREAKING: Florida executes Mark Allen Geralds, 58, for the 1989 home invasion murder of Tressa Pettibone.
Geralds was a handyman who previously did work at the home.
Pettibone was discovered fatally stabbed by her 8-year-old son and the house was ransacked.
Geralds declined a… pic.twitter.com/JxapzCMUe8
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) December 10, 2025
This execution marked the 18th execution the state of Florida has carried out this year. That remains the highest number of executions in a single state this year. In total, 44 people have been executed in America this year.
Governor Ron DeSantis has signed off on another execution that is scheduled to take place next week. A 58-year-old named Frank Athen Walls will be executed on December 18.
The man was convicted of murdering not one but two people during a home invasion. Walls shot and killed a man and a woman that day, and then confessed that he had taken three other lives previously.
