Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a death warrant for 70-year-old Thomas Mitchell Overton, scheduling his execution for 6 p.m. on Nov. 18 at Florida State Prison in Starke. Overton was convicted in the 1992 rape and murder of Missy MacIvor and the murder of her husband, Michael MacIvor, inside their Tavernier home in the Florida Keys.
According to CBS News Miami, Missy MacIvor was 29 and eight months pregnant when she was killed, while her husband was 30. Their unborn child did not survive the attack. The outlet reports that Overton knew the couple through his work as a service-station clerk in Tavernier, part of Key Largo, and that he broke into their home in August 1992.
Court records describe a brutal scene. Michael MacIvor was struck with a blunt object to the back of his head, kicked in the midsection, and then strangled, while Missy MacIvor was bound, raped and strangled, per the same CBS News Miami report. At Overton's 1999 sentencing, witness James Zientek testified that Overton said he broke into the MacIvors' residence to rape Susan MacIvor and killed the couple to muddle the crime scene, according to the sentencing order cited by the station. That order also stated that crime-scene evidence supported Zientek's testimony and showed a plan to avoid detection and arrest.
DNA Testing and a Long Appeal
Investigators eventually linked Overton to the crime scene through DNA. The station's report notes that DNA testing was conducted on Overton's genetic material in 1996 and 1998, ultimately matching his profile to a bedding sample recovered from the MacIvors' home. A federal appellate ruling lays out the forensic record in more detail: the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found an exact match at all six loci it tested, and a 1998 short-tandem-repeat test performed by Bode Technology Group matched Overton's DNA to a scene stain at all 12 loci, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
The killings occurred in 1992, and the victims were Susan Michelle MacIvor, 29, and Michael MacIvor, 30, found murdered in their Tavernier Key home. Accounts of Overton's arrest also diverge: the Eleventh Circuit states he was arrested during a burglary in progress in late 1996, five years after the murders, while the Miami Herald reports he was arrested in 1997. He was ultimately sentenced to death in 1999, along with life sentences for sexual battery on Missy MacIvor and burglary of a dwelling, plus 15 years for the death of the unborn child, per CBS News Miami. The Eleventh Circuit ruled in January 2025 that Overton's federal habeas petition was timely but upheld its denial on the merits.
Florida's Record-Setting Execution Pace
DeSantis signed Overton's warrant one day after Florida executed William Reaves, 77, who was convicted of first-degree murder for the 1986 shooting of Indian River County Sheriff's Deputy Richard Raczkowski — a killing that happened four decades before this year's warrants, according to CBS News Miami. Reaves was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a three-drug injection, marking the state's 18th execution of 2026 as of Oct. 20.
Florida is also scheduled to execute 64-year-old Jesse Guardado on Nov. 5 at Florida State Prison for the 2004 murder of 75-year-old Jackie Malone, who had helped Guardado find lodging and a job after his release from prison, the station reports. If that execution proceeds as scheduled, it would be Florida's 19th of the year — meaning Overton's execution, set for less than two weeks later, would follow close behind in an already record-breaking stretch.
The pace is unprecedented in the modern era. Florida carried out 19 executions in 2025, the most in a single year since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, per CBS News Miami. Those numbers have only accelerated: the Death Penalty Information Center found that Florida had carried out 13 executions by Aug. 18, 2026 — 57% of all executions nationwide during that span — averaging roughly one every 14 days between February and August.
A State Outlier Amid a National Decline
The Death Penalty Information Center's data shows Florida's 13 executions through late August already exceeded the combined total of the five other states that carried out executions that year, even as capital punishment usage has declined elsewhere in the country. The organization also notes that Florida's death-row population of 256 is second only to California's.
The Florida Keys have seen other high-profile death penalty cases in recent years. The Miami Herald reported that Steven Matthew Wolf was sentenced to death in 2023 after being convicted of raping, torturing and murdering Michelle Osborne in his van. Overton's case, decades older, now joins a growing list of executions that Florida has scheduled at a rate unmatched by any other state this year.
