Death row prisoner Donald Dillbeck had a final meal including fried shrimp and onion rings finished off with ice cream and chocolate before his execution by lethal injection.
Dillbeck, 59, was sentenced to death for the 1990 stabbing of Faye Vann, 44, after escaping from jail where he was serving time for killing a police officer.
Officials at Florida State Prison said that Dilbeck “followed his normal routine” on Thursday ahead of his execution and appeared “calm” after getting up early.
Prison system spokeswoman Michelle Glady said that he visited his spiritual advisor and then had his final meal at 9.45am.
He ate fried shrimp, onion rings, mushrooms, butter pecan ice cream, pecan pie and a chocolate bar.
None of his relatives came to visit him.
State rules in Florida make a limit of $40 on last meals to avoid extravagance and all food must be bought locally, according to the Department of Corrections.
Then at 6pm the curtain between the death chamber and the viewing room opened and Dillbeck gave his last words.
“I know I hurt people when I was young. I really messed up,” he said before a foul-mouthed attack on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
“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. Ron DeSantis and other people like him can suck our d***s.”
The execution was Florida's first in nearly four years and the third under Republican Gov DeSantis. By comparison, his immediate predecessor, current U.S. Republican Sen. Rick Scott, oversaw 28 executions.
Dillbeck was 15 when he stabbed a man in Indiana while trying to steal a CB radio, court records show. He fled to Florida, where Lee County Deputy Dwight Lynn Hall found him in a Fort Myers Beach parking lot. While Hall was searching him, Dillbeck hit the deputy in the groin and ran. Hall tackled him and, as the two wrestled, Dillbeck took Hall's gun and shot him twice.
Dillbeck was 11 years into a life sentence for killing the deputy when he walked away from a work release assignment catering a meal for a seniors event, according to court records. He then bought a paring knife and walked to Tallahassee.
Ms Vann was waiting for her family when Dillbeck approached her car with the knife and demanded a ride, saying he'd forgotten how to drive, court records show.
Vann honked the horn, tried to drive off and fought back that Sunday afternoon, but Dillbeck stabbed her more than 20 times and slit her throat, court records show. He crashed the car a short time later and was captured after running from the scene.
Florida's Supreme Court earlier this month denied appeals claiming he shouldn't be put to death because he suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome and it was cruel and unusual to keep him on death row for more than 30 years before his death warrant was signed. The US Supreme Court denied his appeals Wednesday.
DeSantis, who was reelected last November and who is considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate, was quiet on the death penalty during his first term. His office refused to answer repeated phone calls and emails about the lack of warrants signed since 2019.
But DeSantis criticized a Broward County jury's failure to sentence Nikolas Cruz to death for fatally shooting 17 students and faculty at a Parkland high school, and has since said he wants to change a 2017 state law that requires a unanimous jury recommendation to impose the death penalty so that one or two jurors can't affect the sentence.
