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A cold-blooded serial killer who slaughtered five people was executed by lethal injection Thursday night in Florida — becoming the Sunshine State’s 19th death row inmate to die this year.
Frank Athen Walls, 58, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after being injected with a three-drug cocktail while strapped to a gurney as a Catholic priest prayed by his feet inside the death chamber at Florida State Prison in Raiford.
For his last words, the convicted killer apologized for the pain he’s caused his victims’ families.
“I appreciate the opportunity to say what’s on my heart,” he said.
“If any of the members of the family are here, I am sorry for all the things I did, the pain I caused, and all that you have suffered all these years.”
Walls breathed heavily for several minutes after receiving the lethal dose at 6 p.m., which included a sedative, a paralytic and a heart-stopping drug, before losing consciousness and being pronounced dead.
He requested chicken, steak, vegetables, a baked potato, cheesecake and juice as his last meal, USA Today reported.
Walls, who was linked to five heinous murders, was sentenced to death for the July 1987 killings of Eglin Air Force Base airman Edward Alger, 22, and his girlfriend Ann Peterson, 20.
The deranged convict ambushed the couple’s Fort Walton Beach mobile home as they slept and tied them up, later slitting Alger’s throat as he fought for his life before shooting him and Peterson in the head and then swiping their cash, court records show.
Walls was taken into custody the day after the couple’s naked bodies were found, with his roommate tipping police off to his strange and suspicious behavior — ultimately ending Walls’ psychotic killing spree.
The twisted killer lated confessed to carrying out the vicious slayings, but after he was convicted, DNA evidence also tied him to the May 1987 rape and fatal stabbing of Audrey Gygi, 47, a mother of four.
He pleaded no contest, sparing him another trial, but also admitted to the savage killings of Tommie Lou Whiddon, 19, in March 1985 and Cynthia Sue Condra, 24, in September 1986 after striking a deal with Florida prosecutors.
Whiddon reportedly had her throat slit and Condro was stabbed 21 times.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Walls’ death warrant in November.
His execution marks the 19th in the Sunshine State this year, the most since the state walked back its ban on the death penalty in the 1970s.
With Post wires.
English (US)