Florida executed William Reaves at 6:12 p.m. for the 1986 killing of Indian River County Deputy Richard Raczkoski.

The 1992 conviction and the death sentence were already the judgment for the deputy's killing. Tuesday is the day Florida carried that sentence out. USA TODAY, WPTV and Vero News call the man William Reaves Jr. The Florida Supreme Court and the Associated Press do not use the suffix. The deputy's last name is split the same way.

William Reaves, 77, was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, after a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, USA TODAY and the Associated Press reported. USA TODAY specified 6:12 p.m. ET. The Associated Press reported the death-chamber curtain went up at the 6 p.m. execution time with Reaves already strapped to a gurney and an IV in his arm. USA TODAY reported this was the 32nd execution in the United States this year and the 18th in Florida. NBC News, in an Associated Press account updated Tuesday evening, reported Florida has carried out more than half of the national total. Vero News, citing Lt. Kevin Jaworski of the Indian River County Sheriff's Office, had placed the warrant's time at 6 p.m. at the prison in Raiford. Starke and Raiford are how the two accounts name the same prison.

The name is not stable across the coverage. The Florida Supreme Court's Oct. 14, 2026, opinion and the Associated Press call him William Reaves. USA TODAY's execution story, WPTV's warrant story and Vero News call him William Reaves Jr. WFLX put Jr. on the Florida Department of Corrections photo and William Reaves, without the suffix, in the story text. The deputy's name splits too. The Oct. 14 opinion and the Associated Press use Richard Raczkoski. USA TODAY uses Raczkowski in the headline and Raczkoski in a section heading. NBC News' Associated Press rewrite and WFLX use Raczkowski. The Oct. 14 opinion calls him a deputy. USA TODAY, WPTV and Vero News call him Cpl. Richard Raczkoski, or Raczkowski, and say he was 29.

The Oct. 14 opinion says that early one morning in September 1986, Deputy Raczkoski was sent to a Vero Beach convenience store on a 911 call Reaves had placed from the store's pay phone. The deputy asked about warrants. A firearm dropped from Reaves' shorts. After a scuffle Reaves got the gun back, refused an order to hand it over, and shot the deputy in the back four times as the deputy moved away, emptying the clip. The deputy died later that morning. USA TODAY reported the date as about 3 a.m. on Sept. 23, 1986, at a Zippy Mart, and reported that a dispatcher told the deputy there were no warrants. USA TODAY and Vero News reported seven shots and four hits. USA TODAY reported prosecutors said the .38 was not an automatic, so Reaves had to pull the trigger each time. Four shots that empty a clip, and seven shots from a gun that is not an automatic, are not the same account. Vero News, citing court records, quoted him telling the deputy, "It's either me or you." USA TODAY, citing a friend's testimony, quoted, "One of us got to go, me or you."

The Oct. 14 opinion says Reaves went to the home of a friend, Eugene Hinton, admitted shooting an officer, left the state, and was arrested in Georgia, where he confessed and said he had been on cocaine and afraid. USA TODAY reported the arrest came two days later and that he told deputies he was "wired on cocaine." He was convicted and sentenced to death about a year after the shooting. The Florida Supreme Court reversed that conviction because the prosecutor had a conflict of interest, the Oct. 14 opinion said, citing Reaves v. State, 574 So. 2d 105 (Fla. 1991). USA TODAY reported the retrial ended in another conviction and another death sentence in 1992. WPTV reported that sentence was imposed March 6, 1992, in Vero Beach, that the Florida Supreme Court affirmed it on April 7, 1994, and that the U.S. Supreme Court denied review on Nov. 7, 1994. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the current death warrant on Sept. 18, 2026, the Oct. 14 opinion and Vero News reported. On Oct. 14 the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the denial of a successive postconviction motion and denied a habeas petition. The opinion says the claims included clemency and Florida's three-drug injection method. NBC News reported the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the final appeal Tuesday afternoon without comment.

NBC News reported that defense lawyers argued the jurors who recommended death were never told the Department of Veterans Affairs had rated Reaves, an Army veteran, 100 percent disabled by post-traumatic stress disorder from Vietnam. More than 100 veterans sent DeSantis a letter Monday urging him to stop the execution, NBC News and USA TODAY reported. USA TODAY reported the state argued in court this month that it would be "a perverse view of justice and fairness to allow Reaves a stay of his 34-year-old sentence." USA TODAY reported DeSantis' office had not answered its request for comment. After the execution, USA TODAY reported, the deputy's brother, Marc Raczkowski, had told WPTV, "It's finally over." Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers told USA TODAY he wanted the last thing Reaves saw to be a sheriff's uniform: "I want to make sure he knows we never forget." NBC News reported Jesse Guardado, 64, is the next person scheduled for execution in Florida, on Nov. 5. The 1992 conviction and death sentence were the judgment for the deputy's killing. Tuesday's injection carried that sentence out. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.