William Frances Silvia, 61, was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke on Tuesday, becoming the 13th prisoner put to death in Florida this year. He was pronounced dead at 6.11pm local time.
Silvia, known as the 'cookout killer', was sentenced to death for the 2006 murder of his estranged wife, Patricia, and the attempted murder of her mother, Betty Woodard. He shot both women at a family cookout in Orlando.
Execution details
The Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) confirmed the execution. "The sentence of the State of Florida v. Inmate William Frances Silvia, Jr. was carried out at 6.11pm EST", FDOC said in a news release.
All Florida executions use a three-drug lethal injection: a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections. Florida has carried out more than half of the nation's 22 executions so far in 2026.
Background of the crime
According to court records, Silvia had been living in his truck and motel rooms while trying to reconcile with his wife, and had become increasingly dependent on alcohol. He purchased a shotgun and went to Woodard's 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. After an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile, he retrieved the shotgun from his truck and shot the two women. Woodard was shot at point-blank range and lost her left eye and the top portion of her nose.
Appeals and legal history
Silvia was first sentenced to death in 2008, but a court vacated that sentence following an appeal related to Florida's death penalty sentencing procedures. After a new death penalty phase in 2018, he was again sentenced to death.
His attorneys argued that the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, a state agency providing legal representation to Death Row inmates, couldn't provide adequate legal assistance because it was already helping another inmate. The Florida Supreme Court rejected the appeal.
This year's executions follow a record year: 47 people were executed in the US in 2025, with Florida leading at 19, a state record since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day, the first state to do so in nearly a decade.
Two more executions are scheduled in Florida in September. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is scheduled to die on September 1, and Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, on September 10. Lucas was convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his advances, and Conahan was convicted of kidnapping and strangling a man he had paid to pose for nude photos.
