Richard Raczkowski was 29 years old when a drug-fueled ex-convict gunned him down in a Vero Beach parking lot at 3AM.
That was 40 years ago – but William Reaves finally answered for it.
And Ron DeSantis just made Florida do something no state has done in over a decade.
The Night Deputy Raczkowski Died
It was September 23, 1986, outside a convenience store on 20th Street in Vero Beach.
Deputy Richard "Raz" Raczkowski responded to a 911 call – standard stuff.
A man named William Reaves was at a payphone outside.
While the deputy spoke with Reaves, a handgun fell from Reaves' pants.
They struggled over it.
Reaves got it back.
Raczkowski, knowing what was about to happen, begged Reaves to spare his life – then turned to run.
Reaves shot him four times in the back.
Raczkowski died from his wounds.
Reaves fled to Georgia, was arrested two days later, and told a friend he had done it while high on cocaine and panicking.
He spent the next 34 years on Florida's death row.
At 6 p.m. on Tuesday at the Florida State Prison in Starke – that sentence was carried out.
Reaves was 77 years old.
What DeSantis Has Built
This is execution number 18 for Florida in 2026 alone.
Last year, DeSantis set the all-time modern record for Florida with 19 executions – the most since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Florida has accounted for more than half of all U.S. executions in 2026.
In July, DeSantis signed warrants for two prisoners to be executed on the same day – the first time any state had done that in nearly ten years.
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DeSantis has been direct about what he's doing and why.
"Justice delayed is justice denied," he said earlier this year.
"There are some crimes that are so horrific that the only appropriate punishment is the death penalty," DeSantis said. "These are the worst of the worst."
Hard to argue with that, given what William Reaves did to a 29-year-old deputy who was just trying to call him a cab.
Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers had personally pushed DeSantis to sign Reaves' death warrant, calling it "a priority case."
Raczkowski remains the only Indian River County sheriff's deputy ever killed in the line of duty.
The Families Who Waited Four Decades
While lawyers filed appeal after appeal, Richard Raczkowski's family waited.
His fiancée waited.
His parents waited.
The appeals started immediately – the first conviction was reversed due to a prosecutor conflict of interest, forcing a new trial.
Reaves was convicted again in 1992 and sentenced to death a second time.
Then came 34 more years of motions, challenges, and delays.
The Florida Supreme Court rejected his final appeals last week.
His attorneys made a last-ditch argument that Reaves – a Vietnam veteran the VA had rated 100% PTSD-disabled – deserved clemency.
More than 100 veterans wrote DeSantis asking him to stop the execution.
DeSantis didn't stop it.
Raczkowski begged for his life and turned to run – and Reaves shot him anyway.
The Bigger Picture
Forty years is what "the system working" looks like when courts are allowed to run wild with endless delay.
DeSantis looked at Florida's death row – 251 people sitting there, many with exhausted appeals and waiting victims' families – and decided that was unacceptable.
He signed death warrant after death warrant.
He executed two men in a single day.
He backed legislation lowering the jury threshold for death sentences from unanimous to 8-4, ending the deadlock games defense attorneys had exploited for decades.
He's doing what every conservative has talked about for 30 years – and actually delivering it.
The left calls it "indiscriminate."
The family of Richard Raczkowski calls it justice.
On Tuesday, four decades after a young deputy died in a parking lot trying to do his job, Ron DeSantis proved that in Florida, the state still remembers.
Sources:
- David Fischer, "Florida is set to carry out its 18th execution this year," Associated Press, October 20, 2026.
- Staff, "DeSantis signs death warrant for man who killed Indian River County deputy in 1986," CBS12, 2026.
- Staff, "Florida could become first state in decades to carry out 2 executions in 1 day," WPTV, July 2026.
- Indian River County Sheriff's Office, "Deputy Sheriff Richard Rudy Raczkoski," Officer Down Memorial Page, accessed October 2026.
