Knife Killer Richard Knight Stabbed a Pregnant Woman 21 Times — Then Killed Her Daughter?
Strapped to the gurnie, his final words were simple. I want to give thanks to Yahweh, who is the most high. No remorse, no apology, no words for the woman he stabbed 21 times while she was 6 weeks pregnant. No words for her 4-year-old daughter. Just gratitude to God. The question is, what kind of man gets to that gurnie and feels nothing but peace? If you are new to this channel, support us, like, subscribe, and turn on the notification bell.
New videos like this drop every week. On May 21st, 2026, the state of Florida executed Richard Andrew Knight Jr. for the murders of Adessia Stevens and her four-year-old daughter, Hanessia Mullings. But before we get to that needle, you need to know who Adessia Stevens actually was. And you need to understand exactly what was building inside that Coral Springs apartment in the months before Richard Knight walked to that kitchen and picked up a knife.
Adessius Stevens was 24 years old. She was a mother, a partner, and by every account from the people who knew her, a woman who was building something, a home, a relationship, a future. She doted on her daughter. She was hardworking. She was loving. She was also 6 weeks pregnant the night she was murdered.
Her daughter, Hanessia Mullings, was 4 years old. She had been asleep in the next room when it started. She woke up and because she woke up in her own home in the middle of the night, she was killed, too. Hans Mullings, Adessia’s boyfriend and Hanessia’s father, was at work the night it happened. He came home to find both of them gone.
And he carried that grief every single day for the next 26 years. Two people murdered in their own home. A 6 weeks old pregnant woman who fought with everything she had. A child who had no idea what was happening. And a father who lost them both in one night. Richard Andrew Knight Jr. was 21 years old. He had been born in Jamaica and from the very first days of his life, the world had discarded him.
His birth mother abandoned him on a bus. A stranger brought him to a police station. No one knew his name. No one knew his age. He was given a placeholder birthday, July 6th, 1978, and a placeholder name Mark, by the authorities who processed him. He was eventually taken in by the Mullings family.
The same family whose daughter and granddaughter he would one day murder. The Mullings gave him warmth and structure. People who knew him in Jamaica described him as well-liked, admired in his neighborhood. He had a temper when provoked, but by every outward account, he was not dangerous. What was invisible, what no one could fully see, was what was happening inside.
seizures, severe headaches so intense he would strike his own head against walls trying to stop the pain, blackouts, neurological damage that was documented by doctors, but never fully addressed. By the late 1990s, Knight had immigrated to Florida to be near the extended Mullings family. He moved in with his cousin Hans Peter Mullings, Hans’s girlfriend, Adessia Stevens, and their four-year-old daughter, Hanessia.
He was living under their roof and from the very beginning it was not a comfortable arrangement until he overstayed his welcome. Adessia had asked Knight to leave multiple times. Hans had asked him to but he never did. On the night of June 27th, 2000, Adessia told him directly, “You need to move out by morning.” That was not a suggestion.
That was an order. Knight walked outside to cool off. He did not cool off. At approximately 900 p.m., Hans called Adessia from work. She said she was going to bed. He left the office to run errands. He had no idea what was about to happen inside the apartment. Night came back. He walked past the living room. He went to the kitchen.
He picked up a knife. He walked into Adessia’s bedroom and began stabbing her. She woke up fighting. The defensive wounds on her hands showed exactly how hard she fought. She clawed at him, scratched him, and tried to stop every stab, but she could not. In the next room, four-year-old Hines woke to the sounds of what was happening to her mother.
She came out and night turned on her. Hanessia had four stab wounds to her upper chest and neck and one to her hand. There were pieces of broken knife blade on the floor around her small body. She had been found curled in a fetal position near a closet door. A 4-year-old girl had fought for her life, too.
When the first knife broke, Knight went back to the kitchen and grabbed a second one. He accidentally sliced his own hand on the broken blades as he reached for it, leaving his own blood in an apartment. He was about to flee. He returned to the living room. Adessia had crawled from the bedroom, bleeding, 6 weeks pregnant, trying to reach the phone. He found her there.
He rolled her over, and he continued stabbing her until she was dead. In total, Adessius Stevens was stabbed 21 times. Afterwards, Knight wiped the knives on the carpet, went to the bathroom, took off his blood soaked clothes, and shoved them under the sink. He showered, changed. He was about to walk out the door. Then there was a knock.
He looked through the peepphole. A police officer was standing outside. He went to his bedroom window, spotted a female officer outside, and spoke to her calmly, performing complete normaly. Minutes after murdering two people and washing their blood off his body. At 12:21 a.m. on June 28th, 2000, an upstairs neighbor had called 911 after hearing thumping on the walls and a child crying.
That call brought law enforcement to the door. When officers encountered Knight that night, he had a scratch on his chest, a scrape on his shoulder, and fresh cuts on his hands. The cuts from the broken blades in the kitchen. The physical evidence was overwhelming. Fingernail scrapings taken from Adessius Stevens during her autopsy contained Knight’s DNA profile.
She had scratched him during the attack. His DNA was under her fingernails because she had fought him with everything she had left. The blood soaked clothing found under the bathroom sink matched the crime scene. His own blood was left on the broken knife blades in the kitchen. And then Knight confessed not to police but to a fellow inmate at Broward County Jail while awaiting trial.
He recounted the details of the murders in his own words. That inmate remembered every word and at trial he testified against him. The trial took place in Broward County before a Broward County jury. The prosecution built their case around four pillars. the DNA evidence linking Knight directly to Adessius Stevens, the physical evidence recovered from the apartment, the jailhouse confession testimony, and the medical examiner’s findings from both autopsies.
The defense presented evidence of Knight’s childhood abandonment, the sexual abuse he and his brother had suffered, and his history of neurological symptoms, the seizures, the blackouts, the severe headaches. They argued the jury had never received the full picture of the trauma and medical impairment that had shaped his life.
The court found multiple aggravating factors and no statutory mitigation. A Broward County jury found Richard Andrew Knight Jr. guilty of two counts of firstdegree murder, sexual battery, and armed burglary. The jury unanimously recommended death sentences for both murders. In March 2007, a judge imposed consecutive death sentences.
Richard Andrew Knight Jr. was going to Florida’s death row. Knight spent the next 19 years at Florida State Prison near Stark. During that time, his attorneys filed multiple rounds of appeals in both state and federal courts. They argued about an unidentified fingerprint found on one of the murder weapon blades. A latent print that did not match Knight and was never identified.
They argued that the mitigating evidence about his childhood trauma and neurological damage had never been adequately presented to the jury. The Florida Supreme Court rejected those arguments repeatedly. Federal courts did the same. In 2026, Governor Ron DeSantis signed Knight’s death warrant.
The execution was set for May 21st, 2026 at 6 p.m. In the final weeks, Knight’s attorneys filed emergency appeals arguing Florida’s lethal injection protocol violated the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The Florida Supreme Court denied those appeals on April 27th, 2026. His attorneys then went to the US Supreme Court.
On the afternoon of May 21st itself, the day of the scheduled execution, the Supreme Court issued its orders with no noted dissents. Richard Knight had no more appeals left. That same morning in Tennessee, officials had struggled to find a vein to administer lethal injection to death row inmate Tony Kurthers.
a botched attempt that prompted Tennessee’s governor to grant a one-year reprieve on the spot. Knight’s attorneys pointed to that incident as evidence that Florida’s protocol carried similar risks. The Florida Supreme Court unanimously disagreed. Richard Knight rejected his last meal. By 6 p.m. on May 21st, 2026, the curtain of the death chamber at Florida State Prison went up on schedule.
Knight was already strapped to the gurnie, arms extended and four line in place. He was still in calm. Inside the witness room, Hans Mullings, the man who had lost his girlfriend and his four-year-old daughter to Richard Knight’s knife, had gathered with family to witness the end of a 26-year wait. When the warden asked Knight if he had a final statement, he spoke.
I want to give thanks to Yahweh, who is the most high. That was it. No apology to Hans Mullings. No acknowledgement of Adessia. No words for Hanessia. No words at all for the family gathered in that witness room who had waited 26 years for this moment. Just gratitude to God. The lethal injection began immediately. Knight closed his eyes.
He barely moved as the drugs entered his system. After approximately 10 minutes, a medic entered the room. Knight was examined. Richard Andrew Knight Jr. was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. on May 21st, 2026. He was 47 years old when Florida executed him. He was Florida’s 7th execution of 2026. Richard Andrew Knight Jr. is now gone.
26 years. That is how long Hans Mullings carried those two losses at once. his girlfriend, his four-year-old daughter. Here is the question this case leaves behind. Richard Knight was born into abandonment. He was given no name, no birth date, no foundation. He suffered abuse as a child.
He had neurological damage, his doctors documented, but his jury may never have fully understood. His attorneys argued for 19 years that the justice system never saw the complete picture of who he was and why. Does the trauma that shaped Richard Knight explain what he did in that apartment on the night of June 27th, 2000? Or does what he did to Adessia and to 4-year-old Hanessia place him beyond the reach of any explanation? Was justice served here, or did something go wrong somewhere along the way? Drop your answer in the comments below. And if
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