Victor Tony Jones: Death row inmate’s final words before execution at Florida State Prison

A death row inmate who stabbed a married couple to death more than 30 years ago has been executed.

Victor Tony Jones, 64, entered the death chamber at Florida State Prison on Tuesday evening, where he was strapped down to a bed.

The curtain to the viewing room on the other side of a glass barrier opened at 6pm, when the procedure was set to begin.

Watching as the lethal procedure was prepared was Irene Fisher, daughter of Jones’ victims Matilda Nestor, 66, and Jacob Nestor, 67.

Jones had been working for a medical supply business owned by the couple in Miami in December 1990 when he stabbed Ms Nestor in the neck.

He then stabbed Mr Nestor in the chest, who fought back and managed to get into the office and obtain a gun, which he fired five times, striking Jones in the forehead once.

When police found Jones at the scene of the murders, his pockets were filled with the couple’s money.

A jury found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of armed robbery.

Before he was given a lethal injection, Jones was asked if he had any final words, to which he replied, “No, sir”.

The supervising warden shook Jones’ body and shouted his name several minutes after the poison had been administered, but he remained still, his face drained of colour, the Daily Star reported.

A medic pronounced him dead at 6.13pm, and he became the 13th person executed in Florida this year.

After watching Jones die, Ms Fisher noted the stark contrast of his quiet end with her parents’ brutal murders.

“After seeing what I saw tonight, I wish my parents had that opportunity to die so gracefully, close your eyes and just go,” she said.

“They were violently killed. My father fought for 20 minutes with a stab wound in his heart, and my mother died instantly in the bathroom on a cold floor.”

Ms Fisher brought her two adult daughters to watch the execution alongside three other family members.

She said the execution had brought on mixed emotions and that it had been the first time she had seen a person die.

The building, which was formerly the Nestor’s medical supply business, is now a community centre.

“My parents would have loved that because they were always helping people in the community,” Ms Fisher said.

Jones had filed an appeal against his death sentence earlier in September on the basis of intellectual disability, and alleged abuse he experienced in his teenage years while attending a state-funded reform school.

The Florida Supreme Court rejected his claim on the basis that the disability issue had already been litigated and the abuse allegations were not presented at trial.

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, a local advocacy group, have said Jones’ execution “should have been barred by law”.

Jones had been among a group of men who attended Okeechobee School for Boys between 1940 and 1975, who were subject to mental, physical and sexual abuse by staff.

He received more than $40,000 in June this year as part of a $40 million compensation program paying out 926 former students.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the anti-death penalty advocacy group condemned the decision to execute Jones.

“Tonight, we the people of the state of Florida killed Victor Tony Jones, a man who just nine months ago the State recognised as a victim of abuse at the state-run Okeechobee School for Boys. We killed an intellectually disabled Black man with an IQ of under 75, whose execution should have been barred by law.”