JUST IN: Florida Executes U.S. Air Force Vet Edward J. Zakrzewski II — “Thank You For Killing Me”.. A new record for the state of Florida. Governor DeSantis has signed the ninth death warrant this year, the most for any governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The latest execution set for former Egglund Air Force Base Airman Edward Zachuski. He’s convicted of killing his wife and two children. In 1996, Zach Ruski pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, receiving three death sentences. He raised his right hand and swore an oath to the United States of America to protect, to serve, to defend. Edward James Zakvski II earned the rank of technical sergeant in the United States Air Force. That rank does not come easy. It takes years of discipline, performance, and proven leadership. He was 29 years old on June 9th, 1994. By the end of that night, his wife and both of his children were gone. 31 years later on July 31st, 2025, the state of Florida strapped him to a gurnie. It was Florida’s ninth execution of that year alone, a modern state record not seen since 1976. Before we get to that chamber, we need to go back to the beginning. Welcome to the last sentence. This case is one that the American news cycle almost erased completely. Not because it was insignificant, not because the facts were unclear, but because of what else was happening that same week. An event so consuming that it pulled the attention of an entire nation away from a mother and her two children who deserve to be front page news. We are going to talk about that and when we get to it, you will understand exactly how something this serious got buried. There is something else you need to hold on to as we go through this case. This man did not accept his sentence quietly for 31 years. He fought it through every level of the state court system through the federal courts and finally all the way to the United States Supreme Court. They turned him down. Every single court without one dissenting voice at the highest level. If you want to follow cases like this one, cases that nearly disappeared from public record, subscribe to this channel right now. That is exactly [music] what we are here for. Every week we cover the people and the cases that did not get the attention they deserved. Now let us get into what actually happened. Edward James Zakvski 2 was born on January 31st, 1965 in Kalamazoo, Michigan of Polish descent. After a brief period in college, he enlisted in the United States Air Force. He was disciplined, focused, and capable. He worked his way up to the rank of technical sergeant, a supervisory non-commissioned officer position that requires consistent performance and demonstrated leadership over years of service. By 1994, he had returned to education, attending Knight College while maintaining his military career. He was one year away from completing his degree. On paper, he was a man with a career, an education, and a future in front of him. The woman who became his wife was born in South Korea. Her given name was Ponim. Before meeting Edward, she had been married to another American military man, a relationship her family back in South Korea openly disapproved of. That marriage ended with no children. She was working at the Air Force base exchange store in Montana, confirmed through defense attorney court testimony, when she met Edward Zakvski. They married after she became pregnant and she adopted the American name Sylvia. She was 34 years old at the time of her death. Together they had two children. Their son Edward Zakvski 3 was 7 years old and known within the family by his Korean middle name Kim. Their daughter Anna Zakvski was 5 years old. Between 1989 and 1992, the family was stationed in South Korea. For Sylvia, those years were the closest she had felt to peace since leaving her homeland. But court documents later revealed she faced discrimination there for being married to an American and for having mixed race children. The return she had longed for carried complications she had not anticipated. In 1992, new orders came. The family relocated to Mary Esther in Okaloosa County, Florida near Eglund Air Force Base. In April of 1994, they purchased their first home together on Shrewsbury Road, 40 mi east of Pensacola. From the outside, it looked like a family building something permanent. Behind that front door, the marriage was falling apart. Sylvia wanted to return to South Korea. She had told people around her that she intended to go back and planned to take the children with her when she did. Before June 9th, 1994, there was already a warning. A neighbor of the Zakvsky family heard Edward Zakvsky state on at least two separate occasions that he would end his family’s lives before he would accept a divorce. He said it directly. He said it more than once. That neighbor made the decision to stay silent. Not to Sylvia, not to anyone at Eglund Air Force Base, not to law enforcement. That information remained buried until investigators were already standing inside the house on Shrewsbury Road….read more 👇👇👇

The arrangement was straightforward, maintenance and handyman work in exchange for accommodation in a small structure on the property. After roughly 2 weeks, he was joining the family inside the main house for meals and evening television. for four months that held. The FBI and US marshals were working every lead on the mainland.

Zakvsky was sitting in a pastor’s living room on a remote Hawaiian island under a name that did not exist in any connected database. Then came October 14th, 1994. Unsolved mysteries aired that evening. The Zach Schevsky segment appeared not as a featured story, but as part of a short fugitive hotline block alongside two other wanted individuals, Alan Verlne Sneeed and Nasario Palasios.

Even the broadcast that ended his run did not treat him as a headline case. The pastor and his wife were watching. Zakvsky was in the room with them. When his photograph appeared on screen, the pastor turned to him and noted the resemblance directly. Zakvsky acknowledged it, dismissed it, and moved on.

The pastor and his wife were not satisfied with that response. They planned to confront him again the following morning. When they went to his accommodation on October 15th, it was empty. He had left during the night. The only thing remaining was a handwritten note that read, “I’m sorry.” That same morning, Zakvsky walked into a police station on Malachai Island and surrendered. He gave his real name.

The search was over. On October 25th, 1994, he was extradited back to Florida. Zakvsky had been back in Florida less than a year when he tried to run again. In August 1995, while held at Okaloosa County Jail, he and another inmate were caught attempting to escape at the perimeter fence. A man facing three counts of first-degree murder still tried to walk away from accountability.

On March 19th, 1996, he entered guilty ped to all three counts of firstdegree murder. The evidence left him no other credible path. The penalty phase followed. The jury would determine life or death. Defense attorneys Isaac Kuran and Elton Kllum focused entirely on mitigation. They presented his military service record and pointed to a claimed religious conversion in custody.

Zakvsky took the stand and expressed remorse. Attorney Kllum argued he acted toward his children out of mercy, claiming he feared they would face discrimination as mixed race children in South Korea. Kllum used the word half breeds in open court. He also raised allegations that Sylvia had been unfaithful, accumulated debt, and frequented gambling establishments while stationed in Korea.

None of those allegations were proven. They remained unverified claims presented solely as mitigation. Prosecutor Bobby Elmore countered with the physical record in precise sequence, the machete purchased at lunch, the sharpened blade, the pre-cut rope, the crowbar staged in the bedroom, the bank withdrawal the night before.

He also introduced Zachevski’s personal writings referencing Friedrich Nichzche, directly dismantling the religious remorse narrative with Zachky’s own words. The jury voted 7 to five for death on the murders of Sylvia and Edward III. On Anna’s murder, they deadlocked six to six. Judge G.

Robert Baron overrode that deadlock. He sentenced Zakvski to death on all three counts, citing three aggravating factors: prior capital offenses, cold and calculated planning, and especially heinous cruelty. The date was April 19th, 1996. The sentence imposed on April 19th, 1996 carried a legal question that would not be resolved for three decades, a 7 to5 jury vote, a deadlocked 6 to6 on one count.

A judge who overrode both to impose death across all three. Under Florida law today, that path no longer exists. Current Florida law requires a minimum 8 to four jury majority for a death sentence. Zakvsk’s case never reached that threshold on any count. Fidians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty stated publicly that in no other state in the country, and not even under present-day Florida law, would those jury numbers have produced an execution.

His attorneys raised that argument at every available level. Every court rejected it. The Florida Supreme Court dismissed his first appeal on June 12th, 1998. The US Supreme Court denied review in January 1999. Postconviction appeals were rejected in 2003. The 11th Circuit dismissed his case in 2006 and rejected a second appeal in 2009.

A further appeal was dismissed in 2018. That same year, the Zach Schevsky family murders were formally designated as one of the most heinous crimes in the history of Northwest Florida. On July 1st, 2025, Governor Ron De Santis signed the death warrant. Zach Schevsky’s legal team filed a final petition to the United States Supreme Court on July 30th, one day before the scheduled execution.

It was denied without a single dissenting voice. 31 years of appeals. Everyone denied. That closes the second question raised at the start of this documentary. Outside the prison, the Action Network organized a public petition urging the governor to halt the execution. Maria Deliberado of Fidians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty led a prayer service outside Florida State Prison that day. One final detail.