“11,932 days ago Donald Dillbeck brutally killed our mother,” Tony and Laura Vann wrote. “We were robbed of years of memories with her and it has been very painful ever since. However, the execution has given us some closure.”
They added that they were grateful to DeSantis for carrying out the sentence.
In the minutes after the lethal injection procedure began, Dillbeck, covered with a sheet up to his armpits, clenched his jaw and puffed up his cheeks several times. His chest and left arm twitched. At 6:05 p.m., prison workers tapped his eyelashes and grabbed his shoulders, saying “Hey Dillbeck.” He didn’t react.
As 6:06 turned to 6:07, his mouth fell open, and his body became still. By 6:10, his face grew ashen. A physician checked his eyes and put a stethoscope to his chest before pronouncing him dead.
It had been 32 years since Dillbeck was sentenced to death, and Lamb wasn’t his only victim. At the time of her murder, Dillbeck had escaped from a work-release catering job in Gadsden County, where he was serving a life sentence for killing Lee County Deputy Dwight Lynn Hall, 31.
Dillbeck trudged in the woods along Highway 90 to Tallahassee and tried to carjack a vehicle, according to court documents. Vann, who was sitting in the car while her sons and grandchild returned clothing inside, resisted. Dillbeck stabbed her to death and slit her throat with a paring knife.
Along with Vann’s family, two men who said they worked with Hall at the Lee County Sheriff’s Office made the trip to the prison. While they couldn’t witness the execution, they waited in the grass across the street.
“This has been 44 years of waiting,” said Bill Rogers, 70. “We’re the old guys now.”
Rogers and Tony Vetter, 67, both of Fort Myers, said they were on duty the night Dillbeck killed Hall. Dillbeck, 15 at the time, was on the run from Indiana authorities who wanted him for a carjacking. Hall approached the car Dillbeck was sleeping in, and the teen ran away. Hall caught up and, as he tackled Dillbeck, his gun came out of the holster. Dillbeck shot and killed him.
“One person’s bad enough. But he did two, and he did the second brutal,” Rogers said of Dillbeck’s victims. “Nobody should ever be ecstatic about somebody being put to death, but there had to be consequences.”
On his last day in prison, Dillbeck awoke early and went through his normal routine, Glady told reporters Thursday afternoon. He visited with his spiritual adviser, she said. At 9:45 a.m., he had his last meal: fried shrimp, mushrooms, onion rings, butter pecan ice cream, pecan pie and a chocolate bar.
His execution was Florida’s first in more than three years, and the 100th since the Supreme Court allowed the practice to resume in 1975. The Supreme Court on Wednesday night rejected a last-minute appeal by Dillbeck’s attorneys, who argued the neurological impact of his biological mother’s heavy drinking during her pregnancy, and abuse after he was born, should be reason for the justices to spare his life.
DeSantis signed Dillbeck’s death warrant exactly a month ago, on Jan. 23. When asked why Dillbeck, a spokesman pointed to the details of the crime. The COVID-19 pandemic and state emergencies, like hurricanes, contributed to the years-long gap in executions, the spokesman said.
“With the signing of Mr. Dillbeck’s warrant,” spokesman Jeremy Redfern said, “the process has resumed.”
However, opponents of the death penalty believe politics, and DeSantis’ widely expected run for president, also played a role.
The same day DeSantis signed Dillbeck’s warrant, he floated the idea to lower the jury threshold to recommend a death sentence from unanimity, which is required by current state law, to 8-4. About a week later, Republican lawmakers filed a pair of bills that would make that change and also allow a judge to override a jury’s recommendation for life in prison and sentence death instead.
The jury in Dillbeck’s case had the same breakdown: eight for death and four for life.
Seminole Rep. Berny Jacques, who sponsored the House version of the bill, pointed to his frustration at the result of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High massacre. In that case, jurors, split 9-3, spared the life of the shooter, outraging the governor, state lawmakers and some family members of the 17 victims.
“It’s whether or not a small number can basically derail the true administration of justice, and we think that it shouldn’t be left to a small amount,” Jacques said.
Death penalty experts said the proposed legislation is almost identical to a prior version of Florida’s capital sentencing scheme that was struck down in 2016. While Jacques said he feels comfortable it will pass constitutional muster, critics of the law are concerned the courts would strike it down again and that it would ultimately move Florida backwards while other states have trended away from using the ultimate punishment.
“There will not be finality,” said Maria DeLiberato, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, of the disservice such a constitutional challenge would have for crime victims. “There will be instability and unreliability in the system and years of litigation in court over the constitutionality of this system.”
Following the execution, DeLiberato issued a statement emphasizing Dillbeck’s history of childhood trauama and abuse in the adult prison system after he was sentenced in Hall’s murder.
“The death penalty does not keep our communities safer,” she said. “Protecting vulnerable children, and making sure the abused and traumatized and mentally ill have access to mental health care — that’s how we keep our community safer. That’s how we end the cycle of violence. We are better than this.”
— Dillbeck becomes the 1st condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Florida and the 100th overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1979.
— Dillbeck becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,565th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
