Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, is set to be executed Thursday evening at Florida State Prison for the 1992 murder of his wife Karen Spencer. The execution, scheduled for 6 p.m., would mark Florida’s ninth this year, following a record 19 executions in 2025 under Republican Governor Ron DeSantis—the most by any Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Court records detail a pattern of violence: in December 1991, Spencer choked and threatened his wife, then called her from jail to warn he would “finish what he started” upon release. On January 18, 1992, he beat Karen’s teenage son with a clothes iron when the boy tried to intervene. About a week later, the son found Spencer hitting his mother with a brick; the teen attempted to shoot Spencer with a rifle, but the gun misfired. Spencer then threatened the boy with a knife, and the son fled for help. Police arrived to find Karen Spencer dead with multiple stab wounds to the chest.