Florida executed its 13th death row prisoner of the year Tuesday evening as the state continues to lead the nation in capital punishment under Governor Ron DeSantis.
William Frances Silvia, 61, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. After receiving a lethal three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. The execution came just hours after the curtain to the death chamber rose at 6 p.m. With Silvia already strapped to a gurney, an IV in his arm.
He remained relatively motionless with his eyes and mouth open throughout most of the procedure while a priest sat at his feet and prayed. Before the lethal drugs were administered, Silvia was asked if he had any final words.
“I’m sorry all this happened. It was an accident,” he said. “I never meant to hurt her.”
Several minutes after the injection, a warden shook Silvia and shouted his name with no response. A medic declared him dead shortly after.
After Silvia was put to death, Patricia’s sister Pamela Wyatt addressed the media. “Nothing that happens today can give us those stolen years,” she said. “No execution can return Patricia to her children and give her the grandchildren she dreamed of knowing.”
Wyatt continued, adding a note about remembrance. “But today can be an opportunity to remember that Patricia’s life was bigger than the terrible act that ended it.”
Silvia was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder of his estranged wife Patricia Silvia and attempted first-degree murder of his mother-in-law Betty Woodard. Court records show he purchased a shotgun earlier in 2006 and went to his mother-in-law’s house in the Orlando area, where Patricia had been living since the couple separated two months prior.
The family was in the middle of a cookout when Silvia arrived. After attempts to reconcile failed, authorities said Silvia retrieved his shotgun from his truck and shot his wife and his mother-in-law.
Florida has now carried out more than half of the country’s 23 executions so far in 2026. The Sunshine State set a record in 2025 with 19 executions, surpassing the previous state high of eight and making up 19 of the 47 people put to death nationwide that year. Texas, which had carried out two executions this year as of April, ranked a distant second.
DeSantis, who is in his final term, has signed more death warrants than any other governor in Florida’s history. He previously said he wanted to give closure to families who have sometimes waited over 40 years to see their loved ones’ killers punished by death.
“Any time we go forward, I’m convinced that not only was the verdict correct, but that this punishment is absolutely appropriate under the circumstances,” DeSantis said in May 2025.
In 2023, DeSantis signed legislation to add the death penalty as a possible punishment for convicted child sex abusers. Republican lawmakers in Florida are now pushing to expand execution methods to include firing squads and lethal gas.
Florida law allows death sentences to be recommended by an 8-4 jury vote and is the only state where the governor alone has sole authority to sign death warrants and grant clemency. All Florida executions use a three-drug protocol — a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug that stops the heart.
The state had its first double execution since 1964 on July 28, when James Duckett was put to death exactly six hours before Dominick Anthony Occhicone Jr.
Advocates have raised alarms about the pace. “In 2025, Florida carried out more executions than any other state,” said Grace Hanna, executive director of the Tampa-based nonprofit Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. “We carried out about 40 percent of the nation’s executions. I believe the second state carried out five compared to our 19.”
Hanna also noted Florida’s history of wrongful convictions. “We have more death row exonerees than any other state in the country,” she said. “We have 30 people who were sentenced to death and later found to be innocent and sent back home.”
There are currently 247 inmates on Florida’s Death Row, all men except for one woman, according to the Department of Corrections. Two more executions are scheduled for September.