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Florida executes Vietnam veteran William Reaves, 77, for 1986 killing of deputy
William Reaves was pronounced dead Tuesday at Florida State Prison, the state’s 18th execution of 2026. His case drew attention to the state’s rapid pace of executions and arguments over his military-related PTSD.
William Reaves, a 77-year-old Vietnam War veteran convicted of killing an Indian River County sheriff’s deputy, was executed Tuesday at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. after receiving a three-drug lethal injection, according to the account of the execution.
Reaves’ death was Florida’s 18th execution this year. The state carried out a record 19 executions in 2025 and is scheduled to execute another prisoner, Jesse Guardado, on Nov. 5. Florida has accounted for more than half of the 32 executions carried out in the United States so far in 2026.
Reaves was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1986 shooting of Deputy Richard Raczkoski. The deputy’s brother, Marc Raczkoski, said after witnessing the execution that his brother had finally received justice. Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers, who also attended, described the outcome as closure rather than justice, saying he did not consider Reaves’ death just.
The shooting happened Sept. 23, 1986, after Raczkoski responded to a 911 call at a Vero Beach convenience store. Court records say Reaves later acknowledged making the call from a payphone outside the store. During a conversation with the deputy, a gun fell from Reaves’ shorts. The two struggled over it, and Reaves regained control, investigators said. Raczkoski was trying to flee when Reaves shot him four times. The deputy died later that day.
Reaves was first convicted and sentenced to death about a year later. The Florida Supreme Court overturned that conviction because of a conflict of interest involving the prosecutor and ordered a new trial. Reaves was convicted again and sentenced to death in 1992. His subsequent appeals failed, including a last-minute appeal rejected without comment by the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday. The Florida Supreme Court also rejected his latest appeals the previous week.
Reaves’ lawyers challenged Florida’s three-drug injection procedure and argued that jurors who recommended the death penalty had not been told the Department of Veterans Affairs rated him fully disabled because of post-traumatic stress disorder tied to his Army service in Vietnam. More than 100 military veterans asked Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday to halt the execution, citing those concerns. Florida courts have previously upheld the state’s lethal-injection protocol against similar challenges.
DeSantis, who is due to leave office in January after two terms, has said executions deliver justice to victims’ families who may wait decades for death sentences to be carried out. If Guardado’s execution proceeds as scheduled, Florida will match its 2025 record of 19 executions in a year.