A Florida death row inmate used his last words to bash Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
Donald Dillbeck, 59, was executed via lethal injection on Thursday night. He had shot a deputy to death when he was just 15, for which he received a life sentence, then stabbed a woman to death after escaping. Dillbeck admitted wrongdoing in his last words but said DeSantis was worse than him.
"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," he said, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
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The Florida governor personally signed Dillbeck's death warrant last month.
In 1979, Dillbeck, while on the run for a carjacking offense, shot and killed Lee County Deputy Dwight Lynn Hall, 31, after a scuffle, for which he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. In 1990, he escaped and fled to Tallahassee, where he stabbed Faye Lamb Vann to death during a carjacking.
Vann's children, Tony and Laura Vann, watched the execution in the witness gallery. In a statement from prison system spokeswoman Michelle Glady, obtained by the Tallahassee Democrat, the pair praised the decision to execute Dillbeck, saying it gave them "some closure." They also thanked DeSantis for carrying out the sentence.
"11,932 days ago, Donald Dillbeck brutally killed our mother," they said. "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."
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Additionally, two men who worked with Hall at the Lee County Sheriff’s Office stood in the grass across the street during the execution. They both praised the decision as well.
“One person’s bad enough. But he did two, and he did the second brutal,” Bill Rogers, 70, said. “Nobody should ever be ecstatic about somebody being put to death, but there had to be consequences.”