3 former South Florida journalists covered executions. What they saw, in their own words.
Duane Owen, on Florida's death row for the gruesome 1984 murders of a 14-year-old Delray Beach babysitter and a Boca Raton mother of two, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on June 15.
If executed, Owen, 62, would be the 103rd person put to death by the state of Florida since capital punishment was reinstated in the United States in 1976.
Owen raped and slashed to death Karen Slattery on March 24, 1984, while she was babysitting in Delray Beach. He beat to death 38-year-old Georgianna Worden with a hammer about two months later in Boca Raton. Owen has been on death row for the past 38 years.
The last person to be executed by Florida who committed their crime in Palm Beach County was William Van Poyck in 2013. Van Poyck was sentenced to die for the 1987 murder of a Glades Correctional Institution prison guard who was taking a prisoner to a downtown West Palm Beach doctor.
Palm Beach Post reporter Wayne Washington will travel to Florida State Prison in Raiford to witness Owen's execution and report on it.
More: Duane Owen fights to get off death row for two vicious 1984 murders
Three journalists who covered Florida executions explain how they felt
Three South Florida journalists who covered four executions in Florida wrote first-person accounts of their experiences for The Palm Beach Post.
Here are their stories.
Watching Aileen 'Monster' Wuornos and UF coed killer Danny Rolling put to death
∎ Michael Mayo covered the execution of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in 2002 and Gainesville coed killer Danny Rolling in 2006 for the (Fort Lauderdale) Sun Sentinel. Mayo remembers Rolling "singing to the Lord." He recalled Wuornos, played by actress Charlize Theron in the movie "Monster," vowed she would return from the dead. "I'll be back," she said. To read that story, go here (for subscribers)
Florida's lethal injection cocktail: 2 drugs for Duane Owen's execution are in short supply
'I was just numb,' after watching the execution of William Van Poyck
∎ Jane Musgrave, with The Palm Beach Post, witnessed the execution of William Van Poyck in 2013. Van Poyck was sentenced to die for the 1987 murder of a Glades Correctional prison guard. As Musgrave described it, after Van Poyck was put to death, "the world didn't seem safer. I was just numb." To read that story, go here (for subscribers).
Flames erupted from Jesse Tafero after being put to death in electric chair
∎ Larry Keller, then with the Sun Sentinel, witnessed convictede cop-killer Jesse Tafero put to death in the electric chair in 1990. Tafero killed Florida trooper Phillip A. Black and his friend, Donald Robert Irwin. Tafero's was a botched execution as flames shot up from his head. To read that story, go here (for subscribers).
The execution of Donald Dillbeck: Strapped to a gurney, death row inmate saves his last words for DeSantis
More: Florida history: A brief review of Florida’s death row
More: Strapped to a gurney, death row inmate Donald Dillbeck saves his last words for DeSantis
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Duane Owen execution: Reporters describe watching someone put to death
