{"id":4576,"date":"2026-06-18T20:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=4576"},"modified":"2026-06-18T20:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T20:04:09","slug":"nursing-home-execution-advocates-argue-orange-county-wife-killer-74-is-too-old-to-be-put-to-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=4576","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Nursing-home execution\u2019: Advocates argue Orange County wife-killer, 74, is too old to be put to death"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An Orange County man who brutally killed his wife decades ago, in a murder that shocked Central Florida and dramatically changed the way domestic violence is treated, is slated to become the oldest person ever executed in Florida next week.<\/p>\n

Read more New Magic coach Sean Sweeney formally introduced: \u2018I\u2019m ready for it\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

But advocates are calling on Gov. Ron DeSantis to stay his execution, arguing he is too elderly and sick to be put to death.<\/p>\n

Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, was convicted in 1992 of the premeditated murder of his wife, Karen Spencer,\u00a0just outside of her west Orange County home earlier that year. He smashed her face with a brick, slammed her head against a concrete wall and stabbed her twice in the chest in front of her 18-year-old son, who tried to intervene.<\/p>\n

Spencer\u2019s execution is scheduled for June 25 at Florida State Prison in Union County. If executed, he would surpass Samuel Lee Smithers to become the oldest person executed in Florida. Smithers, 72, was executed last year for killing two women in Hillsborough County, according to data from the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

In an online news conference Thursday, Spencer\u2019s spiritual advisor, the Rev. Jeff Hood, made a plea to DeSantis that Spencer be shown mercy due to his advanced age and health issues, including cognitive decline, heart problems and cirrhosis.<\/p>\n

He said Spencer was no longer a threat to anyone and that it would be wrong to kill someone in his condition, calling it a \u201cnursing-home execution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is another one of these executions where somebody is going to have to be lifted up and helped onto the gurney,\u201d he said. \u201cHis old, frail skin\u2026is going to have to be pulled tight so that they can even run the IV.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hood said Spencer had given him a message over the phone Wednesday to deliver to the public: \u201cI want the people of Florida to know that I love God, I\u2019m sorry for what I did, and no matter what happens, I\u2019m going to be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The spiritual advisor also challenged DeSantis, saying that if he wanted to go through with the execution he should personally carry it out.<\/p>\n

Read more Orange County can\u2019t agree to hike impact fees to build roads<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you talk about being tough, more executions, macho, let\u2019s kill as many as we can. It\u2019s pretty crazy when you don\u2019t have to put any skin in the game,\u201d Hood said. \u201c\u2026 A governor that talks a big game, but doesn\u2019t have to be present.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the 1,669 people executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstituted in 1976, only 12 were aged 74 or older at the time of their execution. None of those were in Florida.<\/p>\n

The oldest person to ever be executed in the U.S. was 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr., who was executed in Alabama in 2018, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tommy Zeigler, 80, an Orange County man convicted of killing his wife, her parents and a customer at his furniture store in Winter Garden, is also slated to be executed in Florida. DeSantis has not yet signed his death warrant.<\/p>\n

Before her 1992 murder, Spencer had repeatedly attacked his wife. He was arrested the first time, and was released on bail despite making a call to her from the jail where he threatened to kill her. On the second occasion, police sent paperwork to prosecutors instead of securing an arrest warrant, which was still sitting on a desk when she was killed.<\/p>\n

Police and judges in Orange County soon began to enforce more vigorously new policies designed to protect victims of domestic abuse. By the time of Spencer\u2019s conviction, arrests and prosecutions of such cases had nearly doubled and judges would no longer routinely grant bail to husbands or boyfriends who have been arrested.<\/p>\n

Hood said while he understood that members of Karen Spencer\u2019s family may prefer to see Dusty Spencer executed \u2014 and that he would feel the same way if his loved one had been killed \u2014 society should try to do what he considers is morally right instead of being driven by emotion, arguing that the way to honor her memory is to \u201cquit killing people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho wants the memory of their loved one to be a 74-year-old man strapped to a gurney in the middle of nowhere?\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve encountered this over and over again with families who say, \u2018I don\u2019t want the last memory of someone that I love to be the murder of somebody else.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Gators budget jumps $30.4 million as revenue sharing, football spending expand<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Orange County man who brutally killed his wife in 1992 is slated to become the oldest person ever executed in Florida next week. Advocates are calling on Gov. Ron DeSantis to stay his execution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime-and-public-safety","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018Nursing-home execution\u2019: Advocates argue Orange County wife-killer, 74, is too old to be put to death - Orlando Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=4576\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018Nursing-home execution\u2019: Advocates argue Orange County wife-killer, 74, is too old to be put to death - Orlando Relocation Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An Orange County man who brutally killed his wife in 1992 is slated to become the oldest person ever executed in Florida next week. 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