Bio

Guy Richard Gamble was born on August 19, 1971. He was 20 years old when Helmut Kuehl was murdered in Lake County, Florida. The trial court gave substantial weight to evidence that Gamble had an abused and neglected childhood and severe emotional problems. The court also gave some weight to his drug and alcohol use, remorse, voluntary confessions, and the fact that co-defendant Michael Love received a life sentence rather than death.

Before the murder, Gamble was living in property connected to Helmut Kuehl, who was his landlord. He was associated with Michael Love, and both men were involved in a plan to rob Kuehl. Court records state that approximately six days before the murder, Gamble told his girlfriend that he was going to “take out” Kuehl. The day before the killing, he told her to pack their belongings because they would be leaving town. He also rehearsed the killing by using his girlfriend as a simulated victim while pretending she was writing a rent receipt.

Murder Story

On December 10, 1991, Guy Richard Gamble and Michael Love went to Helmut Kuehl’s garage under the pretense of paying rent. Gamble had picked up his final paycheck earlier that day. He and Love gathered money to make the visit look like a normal rent payment, then approached Kuehl while he was sitting in his garage. They asked him for a rent receipt.

When Kuehl went to his apartment to get the receipt, Love searched the garage for a weapon. He found a claw hammer and placed it on a counter. Before entering the garage, Gamble and Love had discussed needing another weapon in case Gamble could not get a cord around Kuehl’s neck.

When Kuehl returned, Gamble picked up the claw hammer and struck him in the head with enough force to knock him to the floor. Gamble then got on top of Kuehl and held him down while instructing Love to shut the garage doors. After Love closed the doors, he repeatedly struck Kuehl in the head with the hammer.

After the hammer attack, Love wrapped a cord around Kuehl’s neck and began choking him. The Florida Supreme Court record states that Gamble said there was no reason to choke the victim and urged that they leave. Gamble then wrapped the hammer and cord in newspaper and left them on the floor. The official cause of death was blunt head injury from multiple blows to the head, with a neck injury as a contributing factor.

After killing Kuehl, Gamble and Love cleaned themselves of blood, stole Kuehl’s car, and took his wallet. Inside the wallet was a blank check, which Gamble forged and cashed for $8,544. The men then picked up their girlfriends, went to Kentucky Fried Chicken, and left town in the stolen car. They drove to Mississippi. Gamble later abandoned the group and was arrested afterward.

Gamble was charged in Lake County with conspiracy to commit armed robbery, armed robbery, and first-degree murder. On June 25, 1993, a jury found him guilty on all counts. On June 29, 1993, the jury recommended death by a 10-to-2 vote. On August 10, 1993, the trial court sentenced him to death for the murder, life imprisonment for armed robbery, and 15 years for conspiracy to commit armed robbery.

The trial court found two aggravating circumstances: that the murder was cold, calculated, and premeditated, and that it was committed for pecuniary gain. The Florida Supreme Court upheld the conviction and death sentence on May 25, 1995. The court found that Gamble’s planning before the murder, the rent-receipt setup, and the staged approach to Kuehl supported the cold, calculated, and premeditated aggravator.

Gamble continued to challenge his conviction and sentence through state postconviction and federal habeas proceedings. In 2004, the Florida Supreme Court denied postconviction relief and habeas relief. In 2006, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the denial of federal habeas relief, reviewing claims involving self-representation and ineffective assistance of counsel.

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in Hurst v. Florida, Gamble sought relief from his death sentence. The Florida Supreme Court denied relief on January 29, 2018, holding that Hurst did not apply retroactively to his death sentence because his sentence had become final in 1996.

Gamble remained listed on Florida death row in records after that ruling. A 2019 death-row roster still listed Guy Gamble, DOC #123096, under a death sentence, and Death Row U.S.A. still listed him in 2022. Later 2025 legal filings, however, list Guy Gamble, DOC #123096 among Florida death-row prisoners who died of natural causes.