Murderer on death row's surprising 28 last words decades after killing wife and kids

A triple murderer thanked prison staff for "the most cold, calculated" execution moments before he was given a fatal injection on death row yesterday.

Edward Zakrzewski had the three-drug injection more than 30 years after killing his wife and children with a rope and machete respectively. When the curtain to his death chamber at Florida State Prison near Starke went up today, Zakrzewski said: "I want to thank the good people of the Sunshine State for killing me in the most cold, calculated, clean, humane, efficient way possible. I have no complaint."

The 60-year-old man also quoted from a poem but began breathing deeply after the drugs were administered. The murderer was declared dead within minutes of the jab, and became the ninth person put to death in Florida this year. It is a state record for a single-year execution total since the restoration of the death penalty in the US in 1976.

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Zakrzewski, who was an Air Force veteran, opted for a final meal, which included fried pork chops, root beer and ice cream, before his killing.

No members of the victims' family spoke with reporters after the execution. Zakrzewski murdered his 34-year-old wife Sylvia and their children Edward, seven, and Anna, five, in the Florida Panhandle on June 9, 1994. He was sentenced to death but this was more than 30 years ago.

The court heard back then that the dad became angry when Ms Zakrzewski sought a divorce. She was attacked first with a crowbar and strangled with a rope, court testimony showed. Both children were killed with the machete.

Zakrzewski's killing today means Florida has carried out more executions than any other state this year. Texas and South Carolina come in at second, each having carried out four executions. Florida still has two more scheduled in August alone.

Yet, in Zakrzewski's case, lawyers had filed several appeals over the years. These were, though, all rejected, including the final request for a stay of execution denied on Wednesday by the Supreme Court. Opponents of Thursday's execution plan pointed to Zakrzewski’s military service as an Air Force veteran.

There habe been several campaigns this year to end the death penalty in the US states which still use it, including Florida. People protested last month before Michael Bernard Bell, 54, was executed in the state. Bell also thanked officials for not letting him spend the rest of his life in prison, where he had been held for decades following the murders of Jimmy West and Tamecka Smith, whom he shot outside a bar as part of an attempted revenge killing.