Texas<\/a>\u00a0and South Carolina tied for the second-most with five each. Across the US, 47 people were executed in 2025.<\/p>\nSpencer was arrested after choking and threatening to kill his wife, Karen, in December 1991.<\/p>\n
As he was sitting in jail, he called his wife and warned her that he would finish what he started when he was released.<\/p>\n
![\"Florida](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/clouds-hover-entrance-florida-state-129440527.jpg\")
Florida State Prison in Starke, Florida, where the state\u2019s death chamber is located. AP Photo\/Curt Anderson<\/p>\n
On Jan. 18, 1992, Spencer beat his wife\u2019s teenage son with a clothes iron when the teen attempted to stop Spencer from attacking his mother, according to officials.<\/p>\n
About a week later, the boy went to check out a commotion outside their home and saw Spencer hitting his mother in the head with a brick.<\/p>\n
The teen attempted to shoot Spencer with a rifle, but the gun misfired. Spencer threatened the boy with a knife, and the boy ran away to search for help.<\/p>\n
When police arrived, Spencer\u2019s wife was found dead with several stab wounds to the chest.<\/p>\n
Spencer was initially sentenced to death in 1992, after he was convicted of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, aggravated assault and aggravated battery.<\/p>\n
Two years later, the Florida Supreme Court ordered his new sentencing after finding that the trial court had mishandled evaluating aggravating and mitigating circumstances.<\/p>\n
Spencer was resentenced to death the following year, and subsequent appeals were denied.<\/p>\n
Last week, the state Supreme Court rejected Spencer\u2019s appeals, and the\u00a0US Supreme Court\u00a0rejected a final appeal earlier on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 74-year-old\u00a0Florida man\u00a0was executed on Thursday for his conviction in the 1992 fatal stabbing of his wife, making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4536,4537,28,30,29,8220,7854,4538,4278],"class_list":["post-320348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-death-row","tag-executions","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-inmates","tag-lethal-injection","tag-murders","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Dusty](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-26-at-1.16.46-AM.png\")
Dusty Ray Spencer was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m., after officials executed him using a three-drug injection on June 25, 2026. Florida Department of Corrections<\/p>\n