RAIFORD, Fla.—Edward Zakrzewski, a 60-year-old former U.S. Air Force staff sergeant who slaughtered his family more than three decades ago, was executed by lethal injection Thursday evening at Florida State Prison.
Zakrzewski confessed to murdering his wife, Sylvia, and their two children—Edward Jr., 7, and Anna, 5—inside the family’s Pensacola home in June 1994. Prosecutors said he bought a machete during lunch after learning his wife intended to file for divorce. Court records show he bludgeoned Sylvia with a crowbar, strangled her with a rope, and then used the machete to kill her and the children.
After the killings, Zakrzewski fled to Hawaii under an alias but surrendered four months later when viewers of the television series Unsolved Mysteries recognized him.
The execution took place at 6:12 p.m. local time, less than 24 hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his final appeal. Moments before the chemicals flowed, Zakrzewski offered a sardonic thanks to Floridians for delivering what he called an “efficient” death.
His case pushes the nation’s execution tally to 27 this year—the highest annual count since 2015. Twenty-two inmates have died by injection, two by firing squad, and three through nitrogen hypoxia, an asphyxiation method condemned by U.N. human-rights experts as “cruel and inhumane.” Florida leads the country in 2025 with nine executions.
Capital punishment remains a patchwork in the United States: 23 states have abolished it outright, while California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania maintain formal moratoriums. President Donald Trump, a vocal advocate, renewed calls on his first day in office to widen its application to what he termed “the vilest crimes.”
With Zakrzewski’s death, Florida closes one of its most brutal family-murder cases—but the broader debate over America’s ultimate penalty shows no sign of easing.
