The silence at Florida State Prison was palpable Thursday evening as the curtain to the death chamber opened, showing Frank Athen Walls strapped to a gurney with his left arm extended for the IV, a Catholic priest sitting at his feet with his hand resting on his leg. At 6:11 p.m., following an injection of three drugs, the58-year-old was declared dead the 19th execution in Florida this year, a record in modern Florida’s history.
Walls’ crime spree dated almost four decades. According to court documents, in July 1987, Walls broke into the mobile home of Eglin Air Force Base airman Edward Alger and his girlfriend, Ann Peterson. After binding them, Alger managed to untie himself and engaged Walls in a confrontation. Walls slit Alger’s throat and shot him in the head. He then aimed the gun at a struggling Peterson. Arrested the following day after his roommate reported his unusual behavior to the police, Walls confessed to the murders. Later, the police connected him to the rape and murder of Audrey Gygi in May 1987 through DNA evidence. He pleaded no contest to the crime. He also pleaded no contest to the murders of Tommie Lou Whiddon in 1985 and Cynthia Sue Condra in 1986 in a plea bargain.
His lawyers fought for decades to stop the execution based on claims of intellectual disability and medical conditions. The appeals included precedents such as Atkins v. Virginia and Hall v. Florida, which do not send intellectually disabled people to their deaths. For example, in Hall, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the hardline 70-point scale of intelligence in Hall v. Florida did not conform to medical science and did not assess functional capability. Despite this precedent, the Supreme Court of Florida rejected Walls’ claim last week, and the United States Supreme Court denied a stay of execution just hours before execution.
Florida has seen an extreme number of executions this year. It executed only one prisoner last year. However, currently, Florida has already accounted for 40% of the executions performed within the U.S. as of 2025. This surpasses its state record that was established in 2014 with eight executions. However, it hasn’t reached this high since the death of 24 individuals executed by Texas in 2009. “My advice to those who are seeking to avoid the death penalty in Florida would be to not murder people,” said Alex Lanfronconi, communications director for Governor DeSantis. Governor DeSantis has the only sole discretion to perform executions within Florida; only shared with Pennsylvania.
The political and legal context has become much more rigid, says Mark Elias, an elections lawyer and ally of the Democrats. “In 2023, Florida reinstated its non-unanimous jury vote in cases where a defendant sentenced to death, allowing for a death penalty jury vote of just 8-4, which is the lowest in the country,” Elias continues. This move was in reaction to public fury over the prison sentence imposed on the Parkland shooter.
All five members on Florida’s Supreme Court, except for one, were appointed by Governor DeSantis, who has already rejected challenges to the jury vote rule in death penalty cases based But the effects of executions extend well beyond the courtroom. There have been studies about the psychological effects on the prison officials, which has been termed executioner stress. Former Florida prison warden Ron McAndrew described drinking a bottle of scotch per day as a result of watching a man’s head catch on fire in the electric chair, as he stated, I am haunted by the men that I was asked to execute. In 2022, an NPR investigation discovered that the symptoms experienced by execution team personnel, such as insomnia, nightmares, panic attacks, and substance abuse, are identical to those associated with a condition called post-traumatic stress disorder.
This condition has been termed moral injury by psychologists as a result of doing things that violate one’s personal moral standards. Some corrections officers form close bonds with death row inmates over the course of many years, which is why the final step is so painful for them … Corrections officer Tim Lancaster, former corrections officer for the state of Missouri, tested my question with his hypothetical reflection upon another execution: ‘You’re working with a prisoner for 10 years, you’re working with them every single day, you think you feel like they might have changed … And then all of a sudden, now it’s like, ‘OK, we’re going ahead and killing ‘em.’ The final words of Walls were: “I am sorry for all of the things I did, the pain I caused, and all of that you have suffered all these years.” The priest stayed with him, praying as far as it seems, to the very end. This execution takes place in a year that has seen an unprecedented level of executions carried out at this brisk pace that, of course, reflects Florida’s aggressive use of the lethal power it wields.
