Florida will execute William Frances Silvia, 61, this Tuesday, who was convicted of the murder of his wife and the attempted murder of his mother-in-law in 2006, marking the thirteenth execution carried out in the state this year.
The lethal injection is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. (local time) at Florida State Prison in Raiford, about 40 kilometers west of Jacksonville in northern Florida, according to NBC News.
At the time of closing this report, an appeal and a request for suspension remain pending before the United States Supreme Court.
The crime that led him to death row
The events took place on the night of September 22, 2006, in Winter Park, in Seminole County.
William Frances Silvia, who had lost his job and become homeless, purchased a Mossberg Persuader shotgun, caliber 12, and four boxes of ammunition on the same day. Security cameras recorded him calmly selecting the weapon.
That night, he showed up at the home of his wife's parents, Patricia, who had been living there since she separated from him two months prior.
After a failed attempt at reconciliation, Patricia's 15-year-old daughter heard him tell her that "she would regret it," according to court records cited by .
Silvia returned to the vehicle, took the shotgun, and fired first at Betty Woodard, her mother-in-law, at close range in the face. Woodard lost her left eye and the upper part of her nose.
Then, the man shot Patricia in the head, in the presence of several family members, including the victim's young children.
The next day he was arrested and told the police that he had shot because his wife “spent all his money and then started dating her ex-husband”.
The jury recommended the death penalty by a vote of 11 to 1, and Silvia was convicted for the first time in 2008.
A conviction overturned and reinstated
Silvia's legal process was marked by procedural changes.
In 2012, the convicted individual voluntarily waived his rights to appeal and dismissed his attorneys, which made him eligible for an immediate execution order.
In 2017, his sentence was overturned as a result of the Supreme Court of the United States ruling in Hurst v. Florida, which declared the state's system unconstitutional for allowing a judge —and not the jury— to determine the necessary facts to impose the death penalty.
The Florida Supreme Court reinstated the conviction in 2018.
In her most recent appeal, Silvia's lawyers argued that the state agency responsible for representing death row inmates could not provide her with adequate assistance because it was simultaneously representing another inmate. The Florida Supreme Court rejected that argument on August 12.
Groups such as Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops have urged Governor Ron DeSantis to commute the sentence to life in prison, noting that Silvia uses a wheelchair and suffers from serious illnesses.
Florida, the state with the most executions in the country
Silvia's execution is part of the intensive application of the death penalty policy promoted by DeSantis during his last term, which concludes in January 2027.
Florida has carried out more than half of the 22 executions recorded nationwide so far in 2026.
In 2025, the state executed 19 people, a record since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
On July 28, Florida executed two inmates in a single day —James Duckett and Dominick Occhicone— becoming the first state to do so in almost a decade.
DeSantis has defended the fast pace with a phrase he has repeated since 2025: “Some of these crimes were committed in the 1980s. Delayed justice is denied justice.”
On August 13, the Cuban Carlos Cuesta Rodríguez, 70 years old, was executed in Oklahoma for the murder of his partner, Olimpia Fisher, in 2003, on a day when three states carried out the death penalty simultaneously, a situation that had not occurred since January 2010.
Two more executions in September
Following Silvia's execution, Florida has two more executions scheduled for next month. The execution of 74-year-old Harold Gene Lucas is set for September 1; he was convicted of killing a 16-year-old girl who rejected his advances.
Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72 years old, known as the "Hog Trail Killer," is scheduled to be executed on September 10 for the kidnapping and murder of Richard Alan Montgomery in 1996. Authorities link him to similar homicides committed during that same decade in southwestern Florida.
If Silvia's execution takes place, DeSantis will have authorized 31 executions in his last two years in office, compared to nine in his first six years.
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