Death penalty opponents protest execution of man who killed Florida women

July 27, 2024

by TANNER STEWART | WEAR

Thursday, Oct 5th 2023

Execution of Florida death row inmate Michael Zack (Florida Department of Corrections/WEAR){ }

STARKE, Fla. (WEAR) —

A death row inmate was executed in Florida Tuesday evening.

He died by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Starke, marking the sixth inmate put to death in Florida this year. He was also the 105th person executed in the state since capital punishment was resumed in the United States in 1976.

With each execution comes protests. That was no different Tuesday night.

WEAR News was one of the media witnesses to that execution. Death penalty opponents argue Zack was a changed man whose life should have been spared.

In the fall of 1996, Zack’s nine-day crime spree spanned from Tallahassee to Pensacola.

Laurie Rosillo was the first victim, killed on an Okaloosa County beach after befriending Zack at a nearby bar.

It was the sexual assault and murder of Ravonne Kennedy Smith the next day in Escambia County that would ultimately lead him to death row in 1997.

Appeal after appeal through the years offered insight into Zack’s mental state. His attorneys most recently argued he suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome, though the sentence would never be reversed.

The State of Florida vs. Michael Duane Zack III sentence was carried out at 6:14 p.m. on Tuesday.

The witness room was still. Not a word was spoken among the 20 witnesses for more than 30 minutes.

When the curtain covering the window to the execution room was dropped, Zack looked to the crowd before a prison official called the governor to confirm the death warrant.

Zack uttered his last words one minute later: “I love you all."

Just outside the prison, about 50 people protested across the street from the prison.

Protestors like Clemente Aguirre knew Zack personally.

Aguirre spent more than a decade on death row with Zack before his own death sentence for double murder was thrown out for wrongful conviction.

Aguirre spoke of Zack as a close friend inside the prison.

"I believe with all my love and all my heart, that place changes you forever. So no matter who you were, it’s who you become," Aguirre said. “In my experience in there with this man, there was no violence. He did not curse. Everything was love and forgiveness.”

Though his final words on the execution table were brief, Zack left behind more for others to read, in a letter he released on his last day.

There are currently 291 inmates on Florida's death row. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, there are currently no executions scheduled in Florida through 2025.

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