Dusty Ray Spencer, who was convicted in 1993 of stabbing his wife to death in front of her son, was executed on Thursday evening by the state of Florida. Photo by Florida Department of Corrections
Florida executed 74-year-old Dusty Ray Spencer on Thursday evening for the 1992 stabbing death of his wife, the state’s ninth execution of 2026.
Spencer, who was convicted in 1993 of stabbing his wife, Karen, to death in their backyard in front of her son, is now the oldest person executed in Florida’s history, Florida Today and WPBF reported.
“The sentence of the state of Florida v. Inmate Dusty R. Spencer was carried out at 6:10 p.m. EST,” the Florida Department of Corrections said in a statement.
Attorneys for Spencer had argued in court that his death by lethal injection should be canceled because he is a “sick old man,” and an advocacy group further said that the way lethal injection drugs could interact with a liver condition could make it a cruel punishment.
Spencer had both cirrhosis of the liver and portal hypertension, his lawyers told the U.S. Supreme Court, and presented evidence that the state had previously used insufficient, expired or incorrect drugs in previous executions, although similar cases presented to the Court also were not successful.
The Florida Attorney General’s Office, however, said that Spencer’s execution was “long-deserved,” based on the history of the case and that fact that he was sentenced to death a second time after successfully appealing his first sentence, USA Today reported.
Spencer was arrested in December 1991 in Orange County, Fla., after covering his wife’s nose and mouth and choking her, and while in jail called her to warn that he would “finish what he started” when he got out of jail.
Weeks later, his son was awakened in the middle of the night to see Spencer hit his wife in the head with a brick and then slam her head into the concrete side of the house.
Spencer’s son tried to carry his mother away from the scene, but Spencer attacked them with a knife.
The son ran for help, while Spencer stabbed his wife repeatedly in the face, arms and chest, and when emergency officials got to the scene, she had bled to death.
Spencer was initially sentenced to death in 1993, but he successfully appealed it over how the court handled certain parts of the case and eventually resentenced to death in 1996.
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