STARK, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of fatally stabbing a couple during a 1990 robbery in South Florida is scheduled to be executed Tuesday evening.
Victor Tony Jones, 64, is due to receive a fatal injection at the Florida State Jail near the Florida State Jail from 6pm under a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. This was Florida’s 13th death sentence in 2025, further extending the state record for a year’s general execution.
Since the US Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, Florida’s highest annual total of execution was eight in 2014. Florida executed more people this year than any other state, followed by Texas with five. Two more executions are planned in Florida next month.
Jones was convicted and sentenced to death in 1993 on two counts of first-degree murder. The ju judge also found that he had committed two counts of armed robbery.
Jones, a new employee of the Miami-Dade business owned by Matilda and Jacob Nestle in December 1990, stabbing his wife on his neck and his husband in the chest. Investigators decided that Jacob Nestle somehow retreat to the office before he died of his wounds. He pulled a .22 caliber pistol from the holster, fired five times, and hit Jones once into his forehead.
Police found Jones was injured at the scene with Nestle’s money and personal property in his pocket. Jones was then hospitalized.
Jones filed an appeal with the Florida Supreme Court earlier this month. He is allegedly intellectually disabled and abuse he suffered as a teenager at the closed national reform school. The judge denied the allegations, the issue of disability had already been sued, and no allegations of abuse were presented during Jones’ trial.
The appeal was filed Saturday in the U.S. Supreme Court but did not immediately decide.
A total of 33 men in the United States have died this year due to court order enforcement, with at least eight others expected to die for the remainder of 2025.
Samuel Lee Smithers, 72, is set to become the 14th person to be executed in Florida on October 14th. He was convicted in 1996 of killing two women whose bodies were found in a country pond.
Norman Mearle Grim Jr. (65) is scheduled for Florida’s 15th execution on October 28th. He was convicted in 1998 of raping and murdering a neighbor found by a fisherman near the Pensacola Bay Bridge.
Florida’s latest execution took place on September 17th. David Pittman, 63, killed his estranged wife’s sister and parents, and received a fatal injection in 1990 after burning the house while Pittman and his wife were dissenting.
Florida’s execution is carried out using triple drug lethal injections. It is a sedative, paralytic and heart-stopping drug, according to the state Department of Corrections.
