This guy Ron DeSantis has some serious mojo. First, he was “DeSantis the Destroyer” when his appearance in the Windy City set off a kind of hysteria not seen since the 1872 Chicago Fire. Then, his stop in New York City almost gave local Democrats a case of apoplexy.
Now DeSantis’s name has come up in Florida’s execution chamber. Donald Dillbeck, a man who murdered a mother of two while trying to carjack her vehicle, was sentenced to death in Florida 32 years ago. He had also killed a deputy sheriff after escaping prison, where he was serving a life sentence for yet another crime.
The two children of the carjacking victim watched with emotionless expressions as Dillbeck was led into the execution chamber. His last words show that Mr. Dillbeck has been following the news.
“I know I hurt people when I was young. I really messed up,” Dillbeck reportedly said just before his death. “But I know Ron DeSantis has done a lot worse. He’s taken a lot from a lot of people. I speak for all men, women, and children. He’s put his foot on our necks. Ron DeSantis and other people like him can s—k our d—s.”
Classy, to the end.
Ron DeSantis never killed anyone — certainly not a mother of two who fought for her life against a vicious killer.
Dillbeck trudged in the woods along Highway 90 to Tallahassee and tried to carjack a vehicle, according to court documents. Vann, who was sitting in the car while her sons and grandchild returned clothing inside, resisted. Dillbeck stabbed her to death and slit her throat with a paring knife.
So how did DeSantis’s name end up on the lips of a killer about to be executed? It seems that the execution of David Dillbeck is being portrayed as part of DeSanti’s campaign for the presidency — or something.
The same day DeSantis signed Dillbeck’s warrant, he floated the idea to lower the jury threshold to recommend a death sentence from unanimity, which is required by current state law, to 8-4. About a week later, Republican lawmakers filed a pair of bills that would make that change and also allow a judge to override a jury’s recommendation for life in prison and sentence death instead.
The jury in Dillbeck’s case had the same breakdown: eight for death and four for life.
Seminole Rep. Berny Jacques, who sponsored the House version of the bill, pointed to his frustration at the result of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High massacre. In that case, jurors, split 9-3, spared the life of the shooter, outraging the governor, state lawmakers and some family members of the 17 victims.
And what do the children of Faye Vann think of the execution of their mother’s killer?
“11,932 days ago Donald Dillbeck brutally killed our mother,” Tony and Laura Vann wrote. “We were robbed of years of memories with her and it has been very painful ever since. However, the execution has given us some closure.”
The children also expressed their gratitude to DeSantis for signing the death warrant.
Everything DeSantis does from here on out will be filtered through the lens of his political ambitions. This is inevitable as the left seeks to whittle DeSantis down to size to possibly take on the smaller-than-life Joe Biden.
But doesn’t it bother any of DeSantis’s critics that they are siding with and in agreement with a heartless murderer?
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