Florida Executes 74-Year-Old Veteran for Murder of His Wife

Florida authorities carried out the death penalty on Dusty Ray Spencer, a former Marine convicted of killing his wife Karen in Orange County. It is the state's ninth execution this year.

Florida Executes 74-Year-Old Veteran for Murder of His Wife

Florida authorities executed Dusty Ray Spencer on Thursday, a 74-year-old man sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, marking the ninth use of capital punishment in the state so far this year. The figure follows a historic record of 19 executions reached in 2025.

Spencer, a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, received a lethal injection at 6:10 p.m. local time at Florida State Prison in Raiford. The execution order had been signed in May by Governor Ron DeSantis, according to the EFE report published in El Deber.

The court found him guilty of the murder of Karen Spencer, which occurred in Orange County in central Florida. Prosecutors stated that he attacked her with a brick and a knife after having threatened to kill her.

The crime was witnessed by the victim's 17-year-old son, who tried unsuccessfully to stop his stepfather's assault.

During the trial, defense attorneys argued that it was a crime of passion, while the prosecution contended that the murder had been premeditated. The man committed the homicide shortly after being released on bail for a prior incident related to his wife.

Florida has become one of the most active states in the country in applying the death penalty. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the United States recorded 47 executions in 2025, compared to 25 in 2024. The increase is largely attributed to Florida, which was responsible for 19 of those cases, equivalent to 40 percent of the national total.

Spencer became the oldest person executed in modern Florida history. Another 74-year-old inmate, Dennis Sochor, also has an execution date scheduled soon.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, Florida's annual peak had been eight executions, reached in 1984 and 2014. In October 2025, the Death Penalty Information Center counted 265 people on Florida's death row, the second-largest population of condemned inmates in the country, behind only California with 580 prisoners, although that state has maintained a moratorium on executions since 2019.

Source: El Deber