‘It’s finally over’: Vietnam vet who killed Florida cop is executed

'It's finally over': Vietnam vet who killed Florida cop is executed The execution of William Reaves Jr.

Key points

• Raczkoski, known by his friends and family as "Raz, " was posthumously awarded the Medal of Valor by the International Police Association.
• Some of Richard Raczkowski's colleagues informed Treasure Coast Newspapers – part of the USA TODAY Network – that they were planning to attend the execution.
• Florida executed Reaves over solid objections from a group of more than 100 military veterans who tried unsuccessfully to convince Gov.
• Raczkowski's dad, Rudolph Raczkowski, informed the Palm Beach Post that he always informed his son to be careful while out on the job.

'It's finally over': Vietnam vet who killed Florida cop is executed The execution of William Reaves Jr. Came over the solid objections from a group of military veterans who argued that Reaves deserved mercy as of trauma he endured during Vietnam. Amanda Lee Myers USA TODAY. DeSantis signs death warrant for Florida cop killer's execution.

William Reaves Jr.'s death warrant was signed Sept. 18, 2026 by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. In 1986 Reaves killed Indian River County sheriff's deputy Richard Raczkoski outside a convenience store in Vero Beach.

Florida has executed a Vietnam combat veteran who killed a police officer 40 years ago.

For context, the state put William Reaves Jr. To death by lethal injection on Tuesday, Oct. 20, four decades after he fatally shot 29-year-old Cpl. Richard Raczkowski of the Indian River County Sheriff's Office. Reaves, 77, was pronounced dead at 6: 12 p.m. ET.

In practice, the execution marks the 32nd in the U.S. This year and the 18th in Florida. It continues to carry out far more executions than any other state in the nation. The execution is additionally the third to be successfully carried out in the three weeks since the state of Tennessee botched Christa Pike's execution.

While Tennessee's botch involved the popular execution drug pentobarbital, Florida uses three different drugs.

Florida executed Reaves over solid objections from a group of more than 100 military veterans who tried unsuccessfully to convince Gov. Ron DeSantis that Reaves deserved mercy since of the trauma he endured in the Vietnam War.

Reaves was an infantry machine gunner for the Army and lived through ambushes and sniper fire. A friend died in his arms the first week he arrived in country, according to Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

"Although his body returned home intact, part of him remained at war, " the military members wrote in a letter to DeSantis on Oct. 19. "Mr. Reaves could never fully shake the feeling that he was under attack, still fighting for his life half a world away." DeSantis' office has not responded to USA TODAY's request for comment.

As was the justice his victim's family has sought for decades, the state of Florida argued in court this month that Reaves' execution was long overdue. It would be "a perverse view of justice and fairness to allow Reaves a stay of his 34-year-old sentence, " they remarked.

Here's what you need to know regarding Reaves, his war service and his crime. Who has Florida executed so far in 2026? Here's the list. Who did William Reaves kill? How did Cpl. Richard Raczkoski die?

Raczkoski, known affectionally as "Raz, " was responding to a mystery 911 call from a phone booth at a Zippy Mart convenience store in Vero Beach around 3 a.m. On Sept. 23, 1986. No one spoke during the call. When Raczkowski arrived to investigate, Reaves was by the phone booth, according to archived news reports.

For context, the officer called in a warrant check on Reeves, according to court documents. After being informed by a dispatcher that there were no warrants pending, Raczkowski tried to arrange for a cab to come pick Reaves up, archives show. That's when a gun tumbled out of Reaves' waistband.

Raczkoski rapidly put his knee on the gun, prosecutors stated. But Reaves was able to grab the gun and pointed it at the deputy. This person began to draw his own weapon before backing up and starting to run away. Reaves then shot seven times, hitting Raczkoski four times.

Reaves fled and informed a friend: "I done up. I just shot a cop, I just shot a police." The friend testified that Reaves quoted the deputy as saying, "Don't shoot me. Don't shoot me. Don't kill me, " before Reaves opened fire.

"One of us got to go, " Reaves informed Raczkoski, the friend testified. "One of us got to go, me or you."

Reaves was arrested in Georgia two days afterwards. During initial interviews with sheriff's deputies, Reaves admitted to emptying the clip of his.38 pistol at the deputy and remarked he was "wired on cocaine" at the time, court records show. Reaves, who had been in and out of prison since the early 1970s, additionally stated he didn't want to go behind bars again.

According to Prosecutors, the.38 was not automatic and Reaves had to pull the trigger each time. The jury convicted Reaves of premeditated first-degree murder and recommended death.

Raczkoski, known by his friends and family as "Raz, " was posthumously awarded the Medal of Valor by the International Police Association. A section of State Road 60 in Vero Beach is named the Richard Raczkoski Memorial Highway in his honor. More regarding Williams Reaves and service during Vietnam.

There were two stories when it comes to Reaves' life, wrote his former attorney, Chance Meyer, in an op-ed for Slate this month.

"In the prevailing narrative, he's a monster who shot a good cop as the man begged for his life. In the untold story, he's a victim of circumstance – a sweet kid from a small town who was sent to war, trained to kill in the service of his country, and returned home a psychological ruin, " Meyer wrote. "Both stories are true. Only the first has been given moral weight in popular memory."

Meyer remarked the world needed to hear more concerning "the war hero" and how what happened to him during Vietnam explained his crime.

"While still a teenager, William was taken from his community and sent to Vietnam, " Meyer wrote. "He went on search-and-destroy missions, spending day after day under the ever-present threat of stumbling into a firefight. William's body learned to stay locked in a state of hypervigilance that eventually would not switch off. Older soldiers in Charlie Platoon – men William looked up to – trained him to employ heroin and opium-laced marijuana to numb the unrelenting terror."

Meyer wrote that Reaves "killed to survive as friends died around him" and though he created it back home, "the constant panic and the conditioning to use drugs against it came with him."

Meanwhile, a Veterans Affairs hospital denied Reaves support, Meyer wrote. Reaves applied drugs to self-medicate and began carrying a gun for protection, according to Meyer.

Meanwhile, the night of the murder, Meyer wrote that Reaves "thought he was fighting for his life." And, he remarked, jurors deciding Reaves' fate never heard concerning his PTSD or the contention that he was reliving Vietnam when he committed the murder.

For context, the military veterans who wrote to DeSantis appealed to the governor's own service in the U.S. Navy.

"As veterans, we know that service carries obligations in both directions, " they wrote. "We ask service members to risk their lives for this country; in return, our country assumes a solemn duty not to abandon them when they come home carrying wounds we cannot see." Richard Raczkowski's loved ones see execution as justice.

Though it's unclear whether anyone asked them concerning his experience in Vietnam, raczkowski's friends and family have remarked to journalists over the years that Reaves deserved to be executed for what he did.

At the time Raczkowski was murdered, he was planning to marry his longtime girlfriend and the two were going to celebrate her birthday the day he was killed, according to an archived story in Florida Today, part of the USA TODAY Network. Raczkowski's only son, Matthew, was born after his death.

Raczkowski's dad, Rudolph Raczkowski, informed the Palm Beach Post that he always informed his son to be careful while out on the job. He had already lost one son in a deer-hunting accident years earlier and he worried regarding Richard.

"He remarked, 'I am (careful), Dad. I watch myself wherever I go, " Rudolph Raczkowski informed the Post, part of the USA TODAY Network.

When the Florida Supreme Court tossed out Reaves' 1987 murder conviction since the prosecuting attorney at trial had previously worked as a public defender and had represented Reaves in 1973, he expressed frustration in 1991. (Reaves was convicted and sentenced to die a second time in 1992.).

"It's cut and dried, " Raczkowski informed the Indian River Press Journal at the time. "He admitted it. Why do these individuals at the top say he didn't receive a fair trial?"

Richard Raczkowski's brother, Marc Raczkowski, informed WPTV last month that his parents were so distraught after the death of a second son that nothing was ever the same again.

"No more Christmas trees in the house, " he remarked. "Mom didn't decorate."

He remarked that over the past 40 years, he's often felt like everyone forgot concerning his brother and that he was looking to the execution for closure. He informed the station: "It's finally over."

Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers remarked he wanted to produce sure the last thing Reaves sees before he dies is an Indian River County sheriff's uniform: "I want to make sure he knows we never forget." Florida on pace to break 2025 record of executions.

DeSantis has dramatically ramped up death warrants, issuing a record 19 in 2025, almost 2½ times as numerous as the former record of eight and comprising almost half of all executions in the U.S. That year. Amnesty International singled out Florida and DeSantis in its annual report on the surge in executions worldwide.

Taken together, the developments around its finally over: Vietnam vet who killed Florida cop is executed point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.