Global Courant
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — One of Florida’s longest-serving death row inmates will be executed Thursday for two separate murders in 1984, the fatal stabbing of a 14-year-old babysitter when two children fell asleep in her care and the other a hammer attack on a mother of two children.
Duane Owen will receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. EDT at Florida State Prison in Starke. He handed down death sentences for the March 24, 1984 rape and stabbing of Karen Slattery, 14, and for the May 1984 rape and murder of Georgianna Worden, 38, both in Palm Beach County.
Owen assaulted two other women in Palm Beach County who survived. All four attacks occurred just before and after Owen’s 23rd birthday. Now 62, Owen is one of 293 people on Florida’s death row and one of the longest there. In addition to his death sentences, he also received six life sentences.
If carried out, the lethal injection would be Florida’s fourth execution this year, after none since 2019. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed each of the death warrants in the months before announcing his candidacy for president.
Slattery was repeatedly stabbed and raped in a Delray Beach home while two children slept in her care.
Two months later, Worden was sleeping at her home in Boca Raton when Owen beat her several times with a hammer and raped her. One of Worden’s children found her body the next morning while she was getting ready for school, according to court documents.
Delray Beach and Boca Raton are both about 50 miles north of Miami, in Palm Beach County.
Owen’s lawyers argued that he should not be executed on the grounds of insanity. The state Supreme Court rejected its latest appeal last week and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected it on Wednesday.
A defense psychologist testified earlier this month that Owen believes he absorbed his victims’ souls and they still exist within him. Owen’s lawyers had argued that he is schizophrenic and suffers from delusions.
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Prosecutors argued that while Owen has mental health issues, nothing prevents him from being executed, as he knows it is punishment for his crimes. State psychiatrists have testified that Owen’s schizophrenia is an act he discusses when evaluated, but otherwise shows no signs of the illness.
And while the defense argued that Owen has dementia and gender dysphoria, state psychiatrists said Owen has a good memory, doesn’t seem to present himself as female, and that gender dysphoria doesn’t make people more aggressive or delusional. Instead, they said that according to court records, Owen is sexually sadistic.
Owen’s mother died when he was 11 and his father took his own life when he was 13, according to court documents. They add that he was a victim of physical and sexual abuse as a child.
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