Florida executes
A man referred to as the 'cookout killer' has been put to death in Florida, becoming the 13th person to be executed in America's Sunshine State in 2026.
His execution comes 20 years after William Silvia, now 61, pulled up at a family gathering in his truck to get revenge on his estranged wife.
He killed his estranged wife, Patricia, and gravely injured her mother by shooting her at point-blank range.
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William Frances Silvia, 61, received a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke starting at 6pm local time, becoming the 13th prisoner put to death this year in Florida.
The Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) confirmed it had put to death William Frances Silvia, Jr., 61, by lethal injection. He was pronounced dead at 6.11pm.
"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 are carried out via lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections. The Sunshine State has carried out more than half of the nation's 22 executions so far in 2026.
Silvia was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder for the deadly 2006 attack on Patricia Silvia, along with her mother, Betty Woodard.
According to court records, after months of attempting to reconcile with with wife, living in his truck and different motel rooms, and becoming increasingly dependent on alcohol, he purchased a shotgun that year and then went to Woodard's Orlando-area 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, and after an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile, authorities said Silvia retrieved the shotgun from his truck and shot the two women, killing his estranged wife and wounding his mother-in-law. Betty Woodard was shot at point-blank range and lost her left eye and the top portion of her nose.
William Silvia was first sentenced to death following his 2008 trial. A court later vacated that sentence following an appeal related to Florida's death penalty sentencing procedures, but after being granted a new death penalty phase in 2018, he was again sentenced to death.
A Florida state agency, the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, provides legal representation to Death Row inmates. Silvia's attorneys have argued that the agency couldn't provide adequate legal assistance because it was already helping another Death Row inmate. The Florida Supreme Court rejected the appeal.
This modern wave of executions follows a historic preceding year. A total of 47 people were executed in the US in 2025. Florida led the way with 19, a record in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day, the first state in nearly a decade to do so.
Two more executions are planned in Florida next month, as two more executions are scheduled in September. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is scheduled to die on September 1, followed by Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, on September 10.
Lucas was convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his advances and wounding two of her friends.
Conahan was convicted of kidnapping and strangling a man that he had paid to pose for nude photos, and authorities suspect him of similar homicides committed in the 1990s in southwest Florida.