John Spenkelink

In spite of the state's investigation, a rumor began that Spenkelink had been murdered prior to his being brought into the death chamber. The rumor reached Spenkelink's mother Lois, who, after encouragement from a spiritual advisor, paid to have her son's body exhumed for a post-mortem examination. On March 6, 1981, Los Angeles County Coroner Thomas Noguchi announced his finding that the cause of Spenkelink's death was indeed electrocution.

The execution was finally carried out on May 25, 1979, in "Old Sparky", the Florida State Prison electric chair. That morning, Doug Tracht, a popular Jacksonville disc jockey, aired a recording of sizzling bacon on his radio program and dedicated it to Spenkelink.

Governor Graham commissioned an investigation, which in September 1979 concluded that Spenkelink had been "taunted" and had loud exchanges with prison guards and staff immediately before his execution, but had not been physically abused. Florida corrections officials responded by allowing witnesses to see the complete execution process going forward. Florida's counties now perform autopsies on all executed inmates.

Spenkelink appealed his sentence, but in 1977, Governor Reubin Askew of Florida signed Spenkelink's first death warrant. In 1979 Askew's successor, Governor Bob Graham, signed a second death warrant. Spenkelink continued to appeal, earning stays from both the U.S Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, but both stays were overturned, meaning that Spenkelink would be the first man put to death involuntarily (Gilmore had insisted he wanted to die) since executions were resumed in the U.S. in 1976.

Spenkelink escaped from a California prison in 1972, where he was serving a five-years-to-life sentence for armed robbery of a fast-food restaurant, five gas stations and two people. On February 4, 1973, the 24-year-old Spenkelink picked up hitchhiker Joseph J. Szymankiewicz and checked into a hotel in Tallahassee, Florida. The two had been on an apparent robbery spree. The two got into a heated argument, Spenkelink left the hotel room and upon his return shot Szymankiewicz in the back and beat him with a hatchet.

After he was charged, Spenkelink turned down a plea bargain to second-degree murder that would have resulted in a life sentence. In 1973 he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Frank Brumm was also tried as a co-defendant for the murder but was acquitted. After Brumm's acquittal he said Spenkelink had offered him $1,000 to “get rid of” a friend, and that he and Spenkelink both shot Syzmankiewicz and beat him with the hatchet. After Szymankiewicz was dead, Brumm said he and Spenkelink finished a bottle of gin over the body.

In a 1972 court case, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down death penalty schemes in all states, ruling that it had been applied unfairly. Florida and other states rushed to rewrite less-arbitrary laws.

John Arthur Spenkelink (March 29, 1949 – May 25, 1979) was an American convicted murderer. He was executed in 1979, the first convicted criminal to be executed in Florida after capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, and the second (after Gary Gilmore) in the United States.