Darryl B. Barwick, a Florida man, was executed on Wednesday for killing a woman in 1986.
Florida man executed for 1986 murder of a woman he stabbed to death after release from prison for rape
Barwick broke into Rebecca Wendt’s home and stabbed her to death, months after being released from prison for rape. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 6:14 p.m. on Wednesday. The U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal for a stay of execution earlier in the day. Barwick confessed to the murder, saying he had intended to rob Wendt but killed her when she resisted. The victim’s bathing suit appeared as though someone had tried to remove it, but there was no evidence of sexual assault.
However, medical examiners found semen on a blanket near the victim’s body. Barwick was linked to the crime through his confession, footprints left in and outside the apartment, a semen stain, and a witness who saw him heading towards and leaving Wendt’s apartment.
He was convicted of first-degree murder, armed burglary, attempted sexual battery, and armed robbery in November 1986
Barwick was sentenced to death on the jury’s 9-3 recommendation, but the Florida Supreme Court threw out that conviction in 1989 due to prosecutorial misconduct. He was convicted again at his 1992 retrial, and the jury unanimously recommended death. DeSantis signed Barwick’s death warrant last month, and it was the third execution scheduled in Florida this year after a hiatus dating to 2019.
It was also the state’s 102nd execution since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. Barwick did not meet his family members in person, but he spoke with them by phone in recent days, according to prison officials. No relatives of the victim had been scheduled to witness the execution.
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