STARKE, Fla. — A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and wounding his mother-in-law was executed Tuesday, continuing the state’s aggressive use of the death penalty in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ′ final term.
William Frances Silvia, 61, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after receiving a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke.
Silvia was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber went up at 6 p.m. He remained relatively motionless with his eyes and mouth open throughout most of the execution, and a priest sat at his feet and prayed.
Asked if he had any final words, Silvia said, “I’m sorry all this happened. It was an accident. I never meant to hurt her.”
A warden shook him and shouted his name several minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing but got no response. A medic declared him dead a short time later.
Silvia is the 13th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, which has two more executions scheduled in September. The state has carried out more than half of the nation’s 23 executions so far in 2026.
Courts twice sentenced Silvia to death
Silvia was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder for the deadly 2006 attack on Patricia Silvia, along with her mother, Betty Woodard.
According to court records, William Frances Silvia purchased a shotgun that year and then went to Woodard’s Orlando-area home, where his wife had been living since their separation two months earlier. The family was in the middle of a cookout when Silvia arrived, and after an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile, authorities said Silvia retrieved the shotgun from his truck and shot the two women.
Silvia was first sentenced to death following his 2008 trial. A court later vacated that sentence following an appeal related to Florida’s death penalty sentencing procedures, but after being granted a new death penalty phase in 2018, he was again sentenced to death.
A Florida state agency, the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, provides legal representation to death row inmates. Silvia’s attorneys have argued that the agency couldn’t provide adequate legal assistance because it was already helping another death row inmate. The Florida Supreme Court rejected the appeal.
Florida leads the way in executions
A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with 19, a record in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day, the first state in nearly a decade to do so.
Two more executions are planned in Florida next month. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is scheduled to die on Sept. 1, followed by Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, on Sept. 10.
Lucas was convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends.
Conahan was convicted of kidnapping and strangling a man whom he had paid to pose for nude photos, and authorities suspect him of similar homicides committed in the 1990s in southwest Florida.
All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
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