"Edward Zakrzewski's wife had known him since they were in the fourth grade. Growing up in the same neighborhood in Michigan, she and Zakrzewski had a close friendship. "I always had a crush on him, but I always knew that he was a ladies' man in high school, and I was a good girl, so I wasn't having that," she said. As happens with many childhood friendships, they lost touch when her family moved away to Illinois."
""I wrote him a letter, and all I said was, 'I'm there for you if you need somebody to talk to, you probably don't even remember me,'" she said. He wrote her back. "I went to visit him. And one thing led to another." This December would have been their 11th marriage anniversary, but Zakrzewski was executed in July this year for the murder of his then-wife and their two children, in 1994."
""It was like somebody had grabbed my heart and yanked it out of my chest," she said when she heard that his execution warrant had been signed. "These guys are not all monsters. They are human beings that people exploit in the worst moments of their life. They don't know the whole entire back story.""
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has faced criticism for setting executions and deciding clemency requests without providing explanations. Edward Zakrzewski, an Air Force veteran, was executed in July for the 1994 murders of his then-wife and their two children. Zakrzewski reconnected with a childhood friend, married her, and their marriage would have reached 11 years this December. His current wife declined to be named and described profound emotional pain on learning of the execution warrant, saying some incarcerated people are not monsters but are exploited. Zakrzewski pled guilty without a state plea agreement and only faced a jury for sentencing. Almost half of his capital jury believed the murders were heavily mitigated.
Read at Truthout
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]