24 February 2023 :
(23/02/2023) - Donald Dillbeck, 59, White, was executed. He died by lethal injection at 6:13 p.m. at Florida State Prison.
A brown curtain rose at 6 p.m. inside the execution chamber at Florida State Prison, near Starke. Dillbeck lay on a gurney, leather straps secured to his arms, a white sheet covering his body up to his chest. He lifted his head a couple of times to look through a window at witnesses.
He used his last words to disparage the governor who signed his death warrant:
“I know I hurt people when I was young,” he said. “I really messed up. But I know Ron DeSantis has done a lot worse. He’s taken a lot from a lot of people. I speak for all the men, women and children; he’s put his foot on our necks.”
He ended his statement with profane words aimed at DeSantis.
With that, a lethal chemical cocktail began to flow into Dillbeck’s veins. He closed his eyes, opened them, then closed them again. He swallowed hard. He breathed heavily. He began to puff his cheeks and appeared to cough, then snore.
After four minutes, the execution team leader touched Dillbeck’s left cheek, shook his upper body and shouted his name. No response.
Dillbeck’s shoulders shook a few times before he slowly went still.
His death took 11 minutes. He was 59.
Dillbeck had been sentenced to death on March 15, 1991 in the June 24, 1990 stabbing murder of a woman, Faye Vann. In addition, he received two consecutive life sentences on top of the one he already had for the 1979 murder of a policeman when he was 15.
Dillbeck becomes the 1st execution this year in Florida (the first since august 2019), the 100th since Florida resumed executions in 1979, the 7th in the U.S. this year, and the 1,565th overall since the nation resumed executions in 1977.
