Edward James Zakrzewski, a former United States Air Force technical sergeant who slaughtered his wife and two young children in 1994, was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison on July 31, 2025. He was pronounced dead at 6:13 p. m.
local time after spending 29 years on death row.
The execution proceeded without incident. Zakrzewski, 60, offered no apology or remorse in his final statement. Instead, he delivered a sarcastic thank you to the people of Florida for what he called killing him in a cold, calculated, clean, humane and efficient way.
He then began reciting Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” before the drugs took effect and his voice faded.
His last meal consisted of fried pork chops, potatoes, bacon, onions, toast, root beer, a slice of pie, ice cream, and coffee. He declined a spiritual adviser and did not request a Bible. Witnesses said he appeared calm and showed no emotion as the lethal cocktail was administered.
The murders occurred on June 9, 1994, in the quiet suburban neighborhood of Mary Esther, Florida. Zakrzewski, then a technical sergeant at Eglin Air Force Base, received a phone call from his seven-year-old son, Edward III, known as Kim, informing him that his wife Sylvia wanted a divorce and planned to take the children away.
Instead of confronting his wife, Zakrzewski left the base during his lunch break, purchased a machete from a hardware store, and returned to finish his shift. That evening, he arrived home before his family and laid out a crowbar, a rope, and the machete. When Sylvia walked in, he struck her twice in the head with the crowbar, then strangled her with the rope.
He then called his son into the bathroom under the pretense of brushing his teeth. Kim, trusting his father, entered and was attacked with the machete. The boy tried to shield himself, sustaining deep cuts to his wrist before being struck repeatedly.
Moments later, five-year-old Anna walked in and was also hacked to death. She fought back, suffering defensive wounds to her hands and arms.
Zakrzewski arranged the bodies side by side in the bathroom, cleaned up, and fled. He drove to Orlando, boarded a flight to Hawaii under the alias Michael Green, and joined a secluded religious commune in the hills. He lived quietly for four months, working for food and attending services, with no one suspecting his past.
Back in Florida, the Air Force listed him as AWOL. When deputies conducted a welfare check, they discovered the gruesome scene. A nationwide manhunt began.
In October 1994, the television show “Unsolved Mysteries” aired a segment featuring his photo. Members of the commune watched the broadcast and recognized him. Zakrzewski wrote a short note saying “I’m sorry” and walked into a police station nine days later.
He was extradited to Florida and confessed in court in March 1996. The trial phase focused only on sentencing. The prosecution argued the murders were premeditated and inhumane, calling the children in one by one and using their trust against them.
The defense portrayed Zakrzewski as a broken man who feared his wife would take the children back to South Korea, where she had faced discrimination.
The jury voted 7 to 5 for death in the murders of Sylvia and Kim, but deadlocked 6 to 6 for Anna. The judge overrode the tie, citing evidence that Anna saw her brother’s blood and suffered fear in her final moments. Zakrzewski was sentenced to death on three counts.
For 29 years, he remained on Florida’s death row in a six-by-nine-foot cell for 23 hours a day. He filed numerous appeals, arguing that the jury was not unanimous and that his mental state was not properly considered. In 2017, Florida changed its law to require a unanimous jury for the death penalty, but courts ruled the change could not be applied retroactively.
Governor Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant in June 2025, setting the execution for July 31. On his final day, Zakrzewski woke at 5 a. m.
He declined visitors and made no requests for religious support. His final words, delivered steadily, were a sarcastic acknowledgment of the state’s efficiency and a poetic recitation that he did not finish.
The execution chamber held 14 witnesses, including reporters, prison staff, and state officials. At 6:04 p. m.
, the lethal drugs entered his veins. His chest rose and fell in sharp bursts, then slowed. By 6:12 he was still, and he was declared dead one minute later.
He left no statement or note.
Zakrzewski was born on January 31, 1965, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He joined the Air Force in his early twenties and rose to technical sergeant. He met Sylvia, a South Korean woman, in Montana in 1986.
They married after she became pregnant and lived in South Korea for three years before relocating to Florida in 1992.
Neighbors later recalled Zakrzewski saying that if his wife ever left him, he would kill her and the children. Those words became a prophecy. The family’s three graves in Florida remain the only trace of the lives he destroyed.
The execution marks the end of a case that shocked the nation with its cold brutality and the methodical way a decorated veteran disassembled his own family. For the families of Sylvia, Kim, and Anna, the wait for justice lasted more than three decades.
