text: 14 years later , Florida man dies for killing . TALLAHASSEE , Fla. 1996-12-06 Fourteen years after he bludgeoned and shot a man whose trailer home he robbed in 1982 , John Mills Jr . , 41 , was put to death in Florida 's electric chair Friday . As Glenn Lawhon , a rural Florida minister who is the victim 's father , looked on , Mills was pronounced dead at 7:13 a.m. EST ( 1213 GMT ) for the murder of Lester Lawhon . Speaking in Arabic , Mills made a final statement before an anonymous citizen flipped the switch that sent 2000 volts of electricity through his body , said Department of Corrections spokesman Eugene Morris , who was present at the execution . " I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and I bear witness that the prophet Mohammed is the messenger of God , " he quoted Mills as saying . Prison officials said they had no record of Mills ' official conversion , but they said that , on May 14 , 1991 , he had asked that a new name , Yuhanna Abdullah Muhammed , be added to his prison file , which is usually an indication of a conversion to Islam . Mills is the 38th person to die in Florida 's electric chair since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed itself in 1976 and legalised the death penalty . Prison officials said Mills made no special request for a last meal and did not eat the steak , fried potatoes and orange juice offered him . He spent Thursday with family members and his spiritual adviser , Morris said . Mills was scheduled to die Wednesday but had his sentence temporarily postponed by the Florida Supreme Court . On Thursday , the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta denied his appeal in federal court . In March 1982 , Mills and accomplice Michael Frederick knocked on the door of Lester Lawhon 's trailer in an attempt to rob it , police said . Lester Lawhon was taken to a nearby airstrip where he was bludgeoned with a tire iron . Mills then fired two shots that killed Lawhon as the victim tried to run away . Frederick is serving a 347-year sentence .