A convict criticized the man who signed his death warrant before being executed Thursday evening in the Florida State Prison.
Donald Dillbeck, 59, was finally executed following his 1991 conviction on murder and armed robbery charges. Dillbeck escaped from a work release program while serving a life sentence for a previous murder in 1979, according to a Tallahasse Democrat report.
Fox News further reported:
A death row inmate in Florida used his final words to criticize Gov. Ron DeSantis, claiming the Republican leader has “done a lot worse” than him.
Just minutes before Donald Dillbeck, 59, was executed in the Florida State Prison death chamber Thursday night, he admitted to hurting people when he “was young” but saved his final comment to call out DeSantis.
“I know I hurt people when I was young. 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 men, women and children. He’s put his foot on our necks,” Dillbeck said, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
After the comment, officials at the Florida Department of Corrections began the process of administering three drugs that sedated him, paralyzed him, and then stopped his heart.
He was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m., just 11 minutes after the process started, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
Dillbeck was convicted of killing two people and was sentenced to death 32 years ago following the 1990 fatal stabbing of Faye Lamb Vann, whose family members were sitting in the witness gallery.
They did not speak to reporters after Dillbeck was put to death.
In a statement put out later by prison system spokeswoman Michelle Glady, Vann’s children Tony and Laura Vann said Dillbeck “robbed” them of time they could have spent with their mother and that his death brought “some closure.”
“11,932 days ago Donald Dillbeck brutally killed our mother,” they wrote in the let, per the report. “We were robbed of years of memories with her and it has been very painful ever since. However, the execution has given us some closure.”
Dillbeck’s criminal history includes him fatally shooting a Lee County deputy when he was just 15 years old, receiving a life sentence for that murder, escaping custody and killing again.
The then-teenaged Dillbeck killed Lee County Deputy Dwight Lynn Hall, 31, in 1979, during a scuffle where Hall tackled Dillbeck, who grabbed the deputy’s gun and shot and killed him, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
The incident took place as Dillbeck was on the run for a carjacking offense.
In 1990, while Dillbeck was serving a life sentence in Gadsden County for that murder, he escaped from authorities and fled to Tallahassee. Once in the city, he attempted to carjack a vehicle at a mall containing Vann, who he then stabbed to death.
Dillbeck’s last meal included fried shrimp, mushrooms, onion rings, ice cream, pecan pie and chocolate, officials said.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block Dillbeck’s execution.
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