Strapped to a metal table, Spencer offered a final apology to his victim’s family before the three-drug cocktail began to flow at 6:00 p.m. His death at 6:10 p.m. surpassed previous records held by inmates executed at age 72. The state’s pace shows no sign of slowing; another 74-year-old inmate, Dennis Sochor, is slated for execution on July 14.
Court records detail a history of escalating violence preceding the 1992 murder. Months before the killing, Spencer had choked his wife and threatened her life. Following his release from jail, he attacked her son with a clothes iron and ultimately killed Karen Spencer with a knife after an unsuccessful attempt to strike her with a brick. While his defense team argued that his advanced age and liver disease made the execution cruel and unusual, both the state and U.S. Supreme Courts denied his final appeals.
This execution marks the ninth in Florida this year. Under Governor Ron DeSantis, the state has aggressively utilized the death penalty, recording 19 executions in 2025 alone—the highest count since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. Nationwide, the record for the oldest prisoner executed remains with Alabama, which put 83-year-old Walter Leroy Moody Jr. to death in 2018.
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