William Lee Thompson

The backstory

Background

On March 30, 1976, Thompson, his co-defendant Rocco Surace, Sally Ivester and a second woman were staying together in a motel room, according to the Florida Supreme Court’s account of the facts.¹ The court records place the motel in Dade County.¹⁹ The women were told to call home for money. Ivester had said she could get $200 or $300, but she got only $25, and both men became furious, the court wrote.¹ Thompson was 24.⁶

The killing

By the court’s account, Surace ordered Ivester into the bedroom, took off his chain belt and began hitting her in the face, then made her undress; Thompson then began striking her with the chain.¹ Both men beat and tortured her. The court wrote that “they rammed a chair leg into the victim’s vagina, tearing the inner wall and causing internal bleeding,” and that “they repeated the process with a night stick.”¹ She was burned with lit cigarettes and lighters and “was forced to eat her sanitary napkin and lick spilt beer off the floor.”¹

More severe beatings with the chain, a club and the chair leg followed. The beating paused when Ivester was taken to a phone booth and told to call her mother for more money; after the call, the men resumed beating her in the motel room.¹ She died “as a result of internal bleeding and multiple injuries.”¹² The other woman in the room witnessed the killing and, the court wrote, “apparently feared equivalent treatment had she tried to leave the motel room.”¹ According to her testimony as the court summarized it, during the first beating Thompson left the bedroom and told her he was so angry he “felt like killing Sally.”¹

Arrest and two guilty pleas

Thompson was arrested on April 1, 1976, and indicted two weeks later for first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual battery.¹⁹ Four psychiatrists examined him and all concluded that he knew right from wrong and could assist his lawyers, the Florida Supreme Court later noted.¹ In June 1976 he pleaded guilty to all counts, an advisory jury recommended death by a majority vote, and he was sentenced to death.⁹ In 1977 the Florida Supreme Court allowed him to withdraw the plea, citing a “failure of communication with the trial judge or misunderstanding of the facts.”⁴

On Sept. 18, 1978, he pleaded guilty again.⁹¹ Over his objection, the judge convened an advisory jury for the penalty phase, and it recommended death.¹ The judge found two aggravating circumstances: that the murder was “committed while the defendant was engaged in kidnapping and involuntary sexual battery,” and that “this was an atrocious and cruel act.” He found two mitigating circumstances, no significant prior criminal history and Thompson’s age, 26, and sentenced him to death.¹ Thompson argued on appeal that Surace had dominated him. The trial judge “simply declined to find the record justified such a conclusion, and we agree,” the Florida Supreme Court wrote in affirming the sentence in 1980.¹

The co-defendant

Surace also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death, but the Florida Supreme Court reversed his sentence. At his retrial, Thompson testified that he alone was responsible for the entire incident, and Surace was convicted of second-degree murder.¹² The Florida Supreme Court later wrote that Surace received life sentences.³ He died in state custody on Nov. 14, 1993.⁹

The resentencing that produced the current sentence

Gov. Bob Graham signed a death warrant for Thompson in 1982, and a federal court stayed the execution. Gov. Bob Martinez signed another in 1987, and the Florida Supreme Court stayed it.⁹ That year the court vacated the death sentence because the judge had not allowed for consideration of mitigating circumstances outside the statutory list, and it ordered a new sentencing.⁴⁹

A new jury heard the penalty phase in 1989.⁹ The eyewitness could not be found, and her earlier testimony was read to the jury; the Florida Supreme Court later held that the state had made sufficient efforts to locate her.² The state also introduced Thompson’s testimony at Surace’s trial, where, as the court put it, “Thompson testified that he alone was responsible for the beating death of the victim.”² The defense called family members, church members, a school principal and mental health experts, who testified to low intelligence, brain damage, organic brain disease, a childhood as a battered child, depression, and a tendency to follow Surace’s lead.²

The jury recommended death by a vote of 7 to 5.² On Aug. 25, 1989, the judge sentenced Thompson to death for the murder and to life for kidnapping and for sexual battery.⁹

Why the court chose death

The resentencing judge found four aggravating circumstances, listed in full below: that the murder occurred during a sexual battery, that it was committed for financial gain, that it was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, and that it was cold, calculated and premeditated.²¹⁰ He expressly rejected, in detail, each mitigating circumstance offered, including the claim that Thompson could not appreciate the criminality of his conduct, noting that although Thompson scored in the dull-normal range on intelligence tests, other evidence showed he functioned at a higher level.²³ The first sentencing judge had found his age and lack of a significant criminal record to be mitigating; the Florida Supreme Court held that the second judge was not bound by those findings.²

On appeal, the Florida Supreme Court held that the record did not support the cold, calculated and premeditated finding because there was no evidence the killing was planned before the conduct that caused death began, but it found the error harmless. One justice wrote separately that the hours of torture supported that finding.² Thompson argued that the jury’s instruction on the heinous, atrocious or cruel factor was unconstitutionally vague. The court held the claim procedurally barred and any error harmless, finding “that the murder was heinous, atrocious, or cruel under any definition of the terms and beyond a reasonable doubt.”² It affirmed the death sentence on April 1, 1993, and the sentence became final that year.²⁷

Decades of appeals

In 2000 the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the denial of postconviction relief, rejecting claims that included ineffective assistance of counsel and a claim that the state withheld evidence about the eyewitness.³ In 2008 the federal appeals court in Atlanta affirmed the denial of federal habeas relief. It held that “execution following a 31-year term of imprisonment is not in itself a constitutional violation.”⁴

Thompson’s longest-running claim has been that he is intellectually disabled, which would bar his execution. In 2009 the Florida Supreme Court ordered a hearing on the claim.⁵ After that hearing, a circuit judge found he had not proved it by clear and convincing evidence, relying on Florida’s then-rule that an IQ score above 70 defeats the claim, and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed in 2010.⁶ After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that cutoff in 2014, the Florida Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that Thompson had never had “a fair opportunity to show that the Constitution prohibits [his] execution” and ordered a new hearing.⁶²⁰ In 2020, while the case was back in the trial court, the Florida Supreme Court reversed itself on whether the 2014 ruling applies to sentences that were already final. The trial court then denied Thompson’s claim without a hearing, and in 2022 the Florida Supreme Court affirmed. Justice Jorge Labarga dissented.⁸ In 2019 the court also held that the 2016 Hurst decisions, which changed Florida’s death-sentencing procedure, do not apply to Thompson because his sentence was final in 1993.⁷

The 2026 death warrant

DeSantis signed Thompson’s death warrant on Sept. 11, 2026, scheduling his execution for 6 p.m. on Oct. 13.¹⁷¹⁵ His lawyers then told the governor that he “may be insane.” On Sept. 17, citing their allegations, DeSantis issued Executive Order 26-192, which temporarily stayed the execution and appointed three psychiatrists to examine Thompson on Oct. 1 and report the next day.¹⁶ The order quoted his lawyers’ account that a neuropsychologist who met with Thompson on Sept. 15 “opined that Mr. Thompson meets the criteria for insanity due to his dementia and significant cognitive decline.”¹⁷¹⁶

The Florida Supreme Court refused Thompson’s request to suspend the court deadlines until the sanity question was resolved.¹³ On Oct. 8 it affirmed a Miami-Dade circuit court’s denial of his last-minute motion, which argued among other things that his medical condition made lethal injection unconstitutional, and it again refused to reopen his intellectual disability claim. It denied a stay. Justice Labarga dissented in part.¹⁹¹⁷

The withdrawal

Hours after that ruling, on Oct. 8, DeSantis sent a letter to the warden of Florida State Prison withdrawing the death warrant. The letter gave no reason.¹⁷¹⁸ The AP reported that it was the first time DeSantis had withdrawn a death warrant since taking office.¹⁶ As of Oct. 9, the state had not released the psychiatrists’ findings, and Thompson’s lawyers said they had not been told what the panel found.¹⁸¹⁴

Personal backstory

Early life and schooling

The sources reviewed do not say where Thompson grew up. His eighth-grade teacher testified at the 2009 hearing that he was “the most academically challenged child I had.” The teacher said Thompson had a speech impediment and poor motor skills, qualified as “educable mentally retarded,” and “was an absolute follower.”⁶ According to the Florida Supreme Court, school records showed IQ scores between 70 and 79 from 1958 to 1968.⁶ At his 1989 resentencing, school witnesses testified to an IQ score of 75 and a recommendation that he be placed in special education.⁶ His lawyers presented evidence then that he had been a battered child, and later argued that he came from a “troubled family background.”²³

Before the crime

A psychologist who testified for the state in 2009 cited records showing that Thompson enlisted in the Marines, earned a GED, and worked as a security guard, cook, roofer and truck driver.⁶ His lawyers argued at his resentencing that he had been drinking and using drugs on the day of the crime.³ The sources reviewed contain no further detail on his life before 1976.

Mental health and intellectual functioning

Four psychiatrists who examined him in 1976 found that he knew right from wrong and could help his lawyers.¹ At his 1989 resentencing, a psychiatrist and two psychologists assisted the defense, and witnesses testified to low intelligence, brain damage, organic brain disease and depression. The judge rejected each mitigating circumstance.²³

The experts at his 2009 intellectual disability hearing disagreed. A forensic psychologist retained by the defense measured a full-scale IQ of 71 and concluded, after interviewing people who knew him before prison, including his mother and his wife, that he was intellectually disabled. The state’s psychologist measured a full-scale IQ of 88 and concluded he was not. He had also scored 85 in 1987 and 82 in 1988.⁶ The circuit court found that Thompson had not proved intellectual disability, and no court has since found that he is intellectually disabled.⁶⁸

Health and the competency question

According to the Florida Trib, Thompson needed extensive hospital care in the months before the warrant for sepsis, systolic heart failure, severe malnutrition and multiple decubitus ulcers. He was released from a Gainesville hospital on Sept. 10, 2026, and moved to death watch in Starke when the warrant was signed the next day. His lawyers’ request to return him to a medical facility was denied.¹⁴ His lawyers say he has dementia.¹⁶ The Florida Trib reported that a forensic neuropsychologist who has evaluated Thompson four times since 2015 described a “profound level” of cognitive impairment and wrote that he “did not recognize he had been sentenced to death.”¹⁴ His lawyers have also filed a federal lawsuit seeking medical care for him.¹⁸¹⁷ No court or state official has publicly announced a finding on whether he is competent to be executed.¹⁸

Life on death row

Thompson has been in custody since April 1976 and under a death sentence for most of that time.¹⁹ He is 74.¹⁶ The sources reviewed contain no other information about his life in prison or any statement from him since the warrant was signed.