Jesse Guardado murdered a 75-year-old woman who had helped him find a job and a place to live after prison.
That was 22 years ago – and Ron DeSantis just ran out of patience.
Now Florida is four executions away from shattering a record no one thought could be broken again so soon.
The Man Who Repaid Kindness With a Breaker Bar
The details of what Guardado did are worth sitting with.
Jackie Malone believed in second chances.
She found this man work.
She found him a place to stay after he got out of prison.
Then on September 13, 2004, Guardado showed up at her door during a crack cocaine binge and told her he needed to use the phone.
She let him in.
He hit her in the head with a tool called a breaker bar – a heavy iron instrument used to break loose rusted bolts.
Then he stabbed her in the chest.
Then he slit her throat.
Then he took her purse, her jewelry box, her briefcase, and her cellphone and walked out.
Guardado pleaded guilty.
A unanimous jury sentenced him to death in October 2005.
He spent the next 20 years in the court system arguing his lawyers were "ineffective" – the legal term defendants use when they'd rather blame their attorneys than own what they did.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw that argument out in 2024.
DeSantis signed the warrant Monday.
Florida Is About to Shatter Its Own Execution Record
Guardado, 64, is scheduled to die November 5 at Florida State Prison.
He would be Florida's 20th execution of 2026.
Before DeSantis started moving, the modern-era record was eight executions in a single year – set in 1984 and matched in 2014.
DeSantis didn't just break that record.
He doubled it in 2025, then started 2026 like a man with a to-do list.
Three more executions are on the calendar before Guardado even gets there.
James Robertson dies October 13 for beating his cellmate to death in a Florida prison.
William Lee Thompson dies the same day for abducting and killing a North Miami Beach woman in the 1970s.
William Reaves, 77, follows on October 20 for murdering an Indian River County Sheriff's Deputy in 1986.
Florida has conducted more executions than any other state this year – more than the rest of the country combined.
DeSantis Said the Quiet Part Out Loud
When reporters asked DeSantis about the pace, he didn't flinch.
"These are the worst of the worst," he said.
He called the death penalty "an appropriate punishment for the worst offenders" and described signing warrants as his "obligation" – to finally give victims' families what the courts promised them decades ago.
Justice delayed is justice denied. Guardado committed this murder 22 years ago.
William Reaves killed that sheriff's deputy 40 years ago.
William Lee Thompson's victim was murdered half a century back.
These men have spent decades on death row, filing appeals and forcing victims' families back into courtrooms to fight for sentences that were already handed down.
DeSantis looked at that backlog and decided to clear it.
The left is furious.
Advocacy groups are warning about "the spectacle" of executions going wrong – pointing to Tennessee, where a botched procedure last week prompted the governor to halt executions and call for an independent review.
Florida uses a different three-drug protocol, and state officials say every execution this year has been carried out without incident.
That's not a spectacle.
That's accountability.
And Ron DeSantis will not allow the Left to stop him from delivering justice.
Sources:
- News Service of Florida, "DeSantis signs warrant for record 20th execution of the year," Tampa Bay Times, October 6, 2026.
- Jim Turner, "DeSantis Signs 20th Death Warrant Putting Florida on Track to Set Execution Record," Fox 13 News/News Service of Florida, October 6, 2026.
- Fox 13 News Staff, "Florida death row: Gov. DeSantis signs 17th death warrant in 2026," Fox 13 News, September 13, 2026.
- David Fischer, "Florida carries out its 13th execution this year in nation's busiest death chamber," Associated Press/Fox 19, August 19, 2026.
- Associated Press, "Florida sets up a third execution in 2026 as state leads US death penalty surge," January 30, 2026.
