Florida executes ex-cop for killing 9 in 1986

STARKE, Fla. (AP) -- Florida has executed a former police officer who murdered nine people in 1986 during a three-month crime spree.

Jackie Schutz, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick  Scott, said officials pronounced 56-year-old Manuel Pardo dead at 7:47 p.m. Tuesday shortly after the lethal injection process began at Florida State Prison in Starke.

Pardo's crime spree began soon after he was fired from the police department in the small South Florida town of Sweetwater. He had lied to a Bahamian court, saying he was an undercover drug agent in an attempt to free a colleague who was on trial for narcotics smuggling. He had earlier been fired by the Florida Highway Patrol for falsifying traffic tickets.

Most of his victims were drug dealers he had targeted for robbery, but some were innocent witnesses. At his 1988 trial, he told jurors he was doing society a favor by killing his victims.