This week, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed another death warrant for a Florida inmate that has sat on death row since 1986, Darryl Bryan Barwick.
In 1986, Barwick was arrested for the murder of Rebecca Wendt. Wendt was sunbathing at her apartment complex in Panama City when Darryl Barwick spotted her. Witnesses saw Barwick lurking around the premises watching her and circling her several times. When Rebecca returned to her apartment, Barwick followed her inside and killed her by stabbing her thirty-seven times.
Rebecca’s sister, who was her roommate, returned home that evening and found Rebecca dead, wrapped in a comforter. Investigators found bloody footprints and fingerprints throughout the apartment. After he was arrested, Barwick made a full confession. Barwick murdered Wendt just three months after being released from prison. Barwick had been in prison as a result of a conviction for raping a woman at knifepoint.
After just signing the death warrant for another inmate, Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature have expressed an interest in loosening death penalty laws. A new bill will lower the amount of jurors needed to authorize the death penalty for a guilty defendant and possibly extend the punishment to child rapists.
Due to the recent bills being proposed, one must consider if Florida will be the most zealous advocate of the death penalty in the Union. Just this month, Governor DeSantis officially approved the execution of a death row inmate who has awaited his date since 1989.
