DeSantis cancels death row inmate's execution over dementia fears more than five decades after brutal torture-murder of 23-year-old

Published: 02:54 BST, 9 October 2026 | Updated: 04:39 BST, 9 October 2026

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has canceled a death row inmate's execution amid dementia fears following a botched lethal injection in Tennessee.

The Republican withdrew the death warrant for 74-year-old William Lee Thompson late Thursday without providing a reason, Florida Trib reports.

But the decision comes months forensic neuropsychologist Robert H Ouaou determined that Thompson showed a 'profound level' of cognitive impairment. Both state and federal law prohibit executing anyone with intellectual disabilities.

'He did not recognize he had been sentenced to death and was unable to demonstrate meaningful insight into his present condition,' Ouaou wrote in a report.

Thompson had been scheduled to be executed on October 13 at the Florida State Prison in Raiford for the 1976 murder of 23-year-old Sally Ivester.

Prosecutors have said Thompson, then 23, and Rocco James Surace, then 30, beat Ivester with chains, burned her with cigarettes and assaulted her with a chair leg at a hotel in Miami. She later died of shock and internal injuries, with police calling it 'Dade's meanest murder.'

Both Thompson and Surace pleaded guilty to murder in the aftermath and received death sentences, but were granted new trials after they appealed. 

Thompson then once again pleaded guilty and in 1978 was sentenced to die, while Surace - who was found guilty of second-degree murder - was sentenced to 203 years behind bars and died in prison in 1993. 

William Lee Thompson, 74, had been scheduled to be executed on October 13

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (pictured last year) canceled death row inmate William Lee Thompson's death warrant without providing an explanation on Thursday

Thompson has since become the first gravely ill prisoner to live on death watch, a specialized and highly-restrictive housing unit in Starke, Florida where inmates with signed death warrants await execution. 

He was diagnosed with dementia and had required extensive hospital care in recent months for sepsis, systolic heart failure, severe malnutrition and multiple decubitus ulcers. 

The murder was last released from UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville on September 10 on the hospital's understanding he would return to the prison's medical unit, according to Trib.

Instead, Thompson was removed from the medical unit just 24 hours later, when DeSantis signed his death warrant.

Thompson's attorneys then tried to compel the state to return him to a facility where he could receive medical care.

They noted in court filings obtained by the Miami Herald that when Ouaou evaluated Thompson, he determined that the inmate appeared to be disoriented and 'expressed numerous times that he was in severe pain.'

Thompson had been shackled to his wheelchair during the evaluation and appeared to be 'too weak to freely move his arms or extremities,' the neuropsychologist said.

Medical professionals at the prison also assessed Thompson and noted he was disoriented, walking unsteadily and had a 'change in mental status.'

They claimed he 'did not know who the president was,' believing it was 'Bush,' and was 'unable to verbally respond' to a nurse's question.

Sally Ivester, 23, was beaten with chains, burned with cigarettes and assaulted with a chair leg at a hotel in Miami in what police at the time called 'Dade's meanest murder'

The state ultimately denied the request to return Thompson to a prison where he could receive medical care. 

But DeSantis instead issued a temporary stay of execution and commissioned doctors Wade Myers, Tonia Werner and Emily Lazarou to do their own evaluation of the inmate. 

It is unclear what those doctors concluded. 

In a statement, Grace Hanna, executive director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said the governor's withdrawal of Thompson's death warrant was 'the correct decision.' 

'Mr Thompson is gravely ill, not competent, and intellectually disabled,' she said. 'His execution would have been an abject violation of the Eighth Amendment and an affront to human dignity.'