Richard Eugene Hamilton was serving a 25-year sentence for armed robbery at a minimum-security prison in Carteret County, North Carolina. On April 23, 1994, he escaped alongside fellow inmate Anthony Floyd Wainwright, who was serving a 10-year sentence for burglary. Following their escape, the duo stole a vehicle and committed a burglary, acquiring firearms before traveling to Florida.

On April 27, 1994, 23-year-old Carmen Gayheart, a nursing student and mother of two, was abducted at gunpoint from a Winn-Dixie parking lot in Lake City, Florida, while loading groceries into her vehicle. Wainwright and Hamilton forced her into her Ford Bronco and drove her to a secluded wooded area in Hamilton County. 

There, they sexually assaulted her. Hamilton later claimed that Wainwright strangled Gayheart and then shot her twice in the head with a .22 caliber rifle to ensure her death.

The following day, April 28, 1994, the two men were apprehended near Brookhaven, Mississippi, after a shootout with a state trooper. Both sustained non-fatal gunshot wounds. During interrogation, Hamilton confessed to the crime and provided a map leading to Gayheart's body, which was discovered on May 2, 1994.

In May 1995, both men were tried separately and found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, sexual battery, and robbery. They were sentenced to death on June 12, 1995. Hamilton's death sentence was affirmed by the Florida Supreme Court in 1997. He remained on death row until his death from natural causes on January 13, 2023. Wainwright's execution is scheduled for June 10, 2025.