Spiritual Advisor To Deliver Florida Death Row Inmate’s Final Words Before Today’s Execution

Hours before the State of Florida is scheduled to execute 61-year-old William Frances Silvia, his spiritual advisor plans to hold a virtual press conference to publicly release Silvia’s full final statement.

The spiritual advisor, Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, is scheduled to meet with Silvia from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday, August 18, at Florida State Prison.

Following the visit, Hood will host a press conference to read Silvia’s statement in full. Silvia chose to release his statement early to ensure his words are shared at length rather than being limited to the brief final remarks typically allowed inside the execution chamber.

“Florida might get to pick the hour of his death… but Florida does not get to pick the final words he releases,” Hood said.

Hood, who has served as a spiritual advisor at 12 previous executions, noted that Silvia’s will be his 13th. Following the press briefing, Hood will return to the prison to accompany Silvia during the execution.

“I am going to read his words while he’s still breathing,” Hood said. “Then I am going to go back in there and hold onto him until they kill him.”

Hood also plans to use the press conference to reiterate his call for Governor Ron DeSantis to attend the execution in person.

Silvia is set to be put to death by lethal injection at 6 p.m. ET for the 2006 murder of his estranged wife, Patricia Silvia, in Seminole County. Silvia received a death sentence after an 11-1 jury recommendation. If carried out, it will be the 13th execution in Florida this year and the 41st during Governor DeSantis’s administration.

Advocacy group Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has requested a stay of execution and called for Silvia’s sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment without parole, the sole alternative under Florida law for first-degree murder. FADP has organized a peaceful vigil outside Florida State Prison beginning at 5 p.m., along with simultaneous vigils across the state, including in Pinellas County, Jacksonville, North Port, and Tallahassee.

Silvia’s defense has highlighted a documented history of delusional thinking, paranoia, childhood abuse, alcohol dependence, and severe head trauma, including a car crash that knocked him unconscious and a serious assault. Both defense and prosecution experts at his trial agreed that his longstanding psychological disorders served as mitigating factors.

In 2012, Silvia waived his state postconviction appeals. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Hurst v. Florida, a trial court granted Silvia a new sentencing phase, but the Florida Supreme Court later reversed the decision, ruling that his prior waiver barred him from the change in sentencing law. Cornell Law School Professor John Blume’s research shows that 88 percent of capital defendants who waived legal reviews had documented mental illness or substance use disorders.

“Serious mental illness shaped William Silvia’s life, the crime, and the legal decisions that followed,” said Maria DeLiberato, Legal and Policy Director of FADP. “When the consequence is execution, a decision made in the throes of his mental illness should not permanently close the courthouse door to a constitutional protection recognized years later.”

Silvia’s death warrant was signed on July 17 while his legal team was litigating the execution of Dominick Occhicone, who was put to death on July 28. Less than two days later, a third warrant was signed for Harold Lucas, who shares the same defense attorneys, resulting in overlapping deadlines for three executions scheduled within a 34-day period.

“This is not a matter of attorneys simply having a heavy workload,” DeLiberato said. “The State has placed the same defense team under overlapping deadlines in three cases where every minute matters and every decision is irreversible. Florida cannot manufacture an emergency and then pretend that equates to meaningful legal review.”

Barring any last-minute intervention, Silvia remains scheduled for execution at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.

Source: tampafp.com, Maria Hernandez, August 18, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde

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