EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a two-part series on the impact a savage murder and capital punishment has on those left behind. Reporter Elena Barrera spent weeks talking to loved ones and sifting through the Democrat's archives and court records for this special report. Read the other part of the story here.
Colleen Kucler's heart sank when she saw the call.
Her ex-husband's prison pen pal's name flashed across her phone screen, but Kucler didn't need to answer to know what was happening.
The sickness in the pit in her stomach told her the day she never wanted to see had finally come — Loran Cole was scheduled to die.
Headlines everywhere on July 29 told her Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant for Cole, 57, who was convicted of the brutal 1994 murder of a Florida State University student. His execution is set for 6 p.m. Aug. 29.
"We all knew at some point this could happen, I think we kind of hoped it wouldn't," Kucler said. "I'm heartbroken."
On Aug. 23, the Florida Supreme Court unanimously denied Cole's Hail Mary appeal to be granted a stay. He now turns to the U.S. Supreme Court for one last shot.
After almost 30 years on Death Row, Cole was given 30 days to live.
For many of those years, Cole's loved ones have tried to separate the man from the monster portrayed in court records.
Kucler said Cole wasn't an upstanding citizen, but she never knew him to be violent or even want to deal with a confrontation.
But then again Kucler said Cole is a con artist and would lie about the simplest things.
"I will never fully know," she said.
'I was hoping at some point he would reemerge. But not like that.'
For the last 40 years, Kucler has been on a roller coaster she "doesn't even know how to explain."
She first met Cole when she was 16 at a mutual friend's house that he was staying at in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The two hit it off and dated on and off for about five years, during which they became common law husband and wife.
"Aside from the drugs and petty thievery, I was really drawn to him, his personality," she said. "He was fun, loving and intelligent."
In 1988, their son, Ryan Cole, was born, and two years later Cole left. He frequently would disappear and turn up in jail. When he'd get out, Kucler would be there.
"We always found our way back to each other, but not this time," she said.
Kucler never heard from him again until detectives came knocking on her mother's door years later with the news Cole was being tried for murder in Florida.
"I was hoping at some point he would reemerge," she said. "But not like that."
Cole's death warrant comes decades after conviction of savage murder
Two siblings, John Edwards and his sister, intended to spend a weekend camping together, but the trip had barely begun when the Ocala National Forest became the scene of a brutal attack and murder.
On Friday, Feb. 18, 1994, Cole, then 27, and William Paul, then 20, befriended the Edwardses. John, 18, was a FSU student; his sister was 21.
The siblings were setting up camp when they first met Cole.Late that night, the siblings set out to a nearby pond to take photos of alligators with the two men.
Before ever reaching the pond, they were attacked, handcuffed and thrown to the ground.
John was killed that night. His throat was slashed and skull was fractured by three blows to the head.
Cole and Paul took the sister back to the campsite. Cole threatened to kill her if she didn't have sexual intercourse with him. The next day, he raped her again and tied her to a tree before the men took off.
By Sunday, she managed to chew her way through the rope and ran off looking for her brother and for help.
A father and friend behind bars
Growing up, Ryan always knew his father was on Death Row, but he never knew why.
He said he always assumed the reason had something to do with murder, but he wasn't told the whole story until he was 15. His mother gave him clippings from old Tallahassee Democrat articles that were published during the trial that she asked her father, who lived in Tallahassee at the time, to save.
For a while, Ryan said he was angry and resented his father. "I kind of felt like I needed him, and he kind of let me down," he said.
But eventually, Ryan decided it was better to try and get to know his father through strained forms of communication than to not know him at all. Ryan and Kucler consistently wrote emails and letters back and forth with Cole over the years and made occasional phone calls up until his last days.
Cole may have been absent most of his life, but Ryan said he tried to be there in limited ways from behind bars.
Beth Evans, Cole's pen pal for the last four years, said his immediate family never wanted anything to do with him after the murder and his imprisonment.
Cole and Evans have discussed pretty much everything from his years at the infamousArthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a now-shuttered state-run reform school in Marianna where he says he was beaten and raped, to his life in prison.
"Loran and I became best friends," Evans said.
'He's a person, too'
To this day, Cole's loved ones don't know whether to believe he was capable of something so heinous.
"I'd be crazy if I didn't always wonder if he's really guilty of what he's in there for," Ryan said.
In 1995, Cole and Paul were convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery with a deadly weapon. Cole was also convicted of sexual battery. Paul was sentenced to life in prison while Cole was sentenced to death.
Cole never wavered from his story he told his family and friends over the years: He admits to being there and being on drugs at the time, but he didn't kill John — Paul did.
Kucler used to agree with the "eye for an eye" argument when it came to executions, but now in her position, the death penalty is far more complicated than that.
At the end of the day, "he's a person too," Kucler said.
In the eyes of the state of Florida and a jury of his peers, Cole is a murderer. But to Kucler, he was her head-over-heels first love. To Ryan, he is the father he wishes he could've grown up with. To Evans, he is a cherished friend.
And they don't know how to say goodbye.
Breaking & trending news reporter Elena Barrera can be reached atebarrera@tallahassee.com. Follow her on X:@elenabarreraaa.
