Florida is set to carry out its 13th execution of the year on Tuesday, continuing a pace that has made the state responsible for more than half of the nation's 22 executions so far in 2026. William Frances Silvia, 61, is scheduled to receive a three-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke.
Silvia was convicted of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder for a 2006 attack that killed his estranged wife, Patricia Silvia, and wounded her mother, Betty Woodard. Court records indicate Silvia purchased a shotgun and went to his mother-in-law's Orlando-area home, where his wife had been living. After an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile during a family cookout, authorities stated Silvia retrieved the shotgun from his truck and fired upon the two women.
He was initially sentenced to death in 2008. That sentence was later vacated following an appeal concerning Florida's death penalty sentencing procedures. After a new sentencing phase was granted in 2018, Silvia was again sentenced to death.
Attorneys representing Silvia argued that the state's Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, an agency that provides legal representation to death row inmates, could not offer adequate assistance due to its existing caseload. The Florida Supreme Court rejected this appeal, and a final appeal remains pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Florida's execution schedule this year has been notably aggressive. In July, the state executed two prisoners in a single day, the first time in nearly a decade any state had done so. With Silvia's scheduled execution, Florida has carried out 19 executions in 2026, a state record since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The state has two more executions planned for September: Harold Gene Lucas, 74, on Sept. 1, and Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, on Sept. 10.
Lucas was convicted for fatally shooting a teenage girl who rejected his advances and wounding two friends. Conahan was convicted of kidnapping and strangling a man and is suspected in similar homicides from the 1990s.
All executions in Florida are conducted via lethal injection, typically using a sedative, a paralytic, and a heart-stopping drug, according to the Department of Corrections.