Florida executes Dusty Ray Spencer in wife's 1992 murder, oldest inmate executed
Florida executed Dusty Ray Spencer at 74, ending a 34-year case that began with Karen Spencer’s killing in Orange County and ran through repeated appeals.
Florida executed Dusty Ray Spencer at Florida State Prison near Starke on June 25, 2026, and the Florida Department of Corrections pronounced him dead at 6:10 p.m. Spencer, 74, became the oldest person executed in Florida history, and his death closed one of the state’s longest-running death-row cases after more than three decades of litigation. It was Florida’s ninth execution of 2026, a pace that surpassed the state’s prior modern-era annual high of eight in 2014.
Spencer was convicted in 1993 of killing his wife, Karen Spencer, in the backyard of their Orange County home in front of her son. The couple had been partners in a painting business, and Karen asked Spencer to move out in early December 1991 after domestic conflict. On December 10, 1991, Spencer confronted her about money withdrawn from the business account. Spencer was arrested in December 1991 after choking and threatening to kill Karen, and the violence later escalated into the fatal attack.
The Florida Supreme Court’s 1994 decision vacated Spencer’s death sentence and sent the case back for resentencing after earlier appellate review. In the final stretch before the execution, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant on May 26, 2026, setting the date for June 25. The court’s June 18 opinion in SC2026-0880 denied Spencer’s final appeal and request for a stay, ending the last legal effort to stop the execution. The underlying case was filed in Orange County circuit court under 481992CF000473000AOX.
Spencer’s attorneys argued that his age and medical problems, including cirrhosis of the liver and portal hypertension, made lethal injection cruel. State lawyers said the sentence had been delayed long enough.
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