DeSantis Signs Death Warrant for Thomas Overton in Florida Keys Killings of Pregnant Teacher and Husband, Setting Up Record 20th Execution of 2026

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a death warrant Wednesday, Oct. 21, for Thomas Mitchell Overton, a 70-year-old Florida Keys man sentenced to death in 1999 for killing Michael and Susan "Missy" MacIvor and their unborn child in the couple's Tavernier home. If it is carried out, Overton's execution at Florida State Prison would be the state's 20th of 2026, the most Florida has carried out in a single year since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

The warrant came one day after Florida executed William Reaves Jr. for the 1986 killing of an Indian River County sheriff's deputy, keeping the state on a pace that has made it the country's busiest executioner by a wide margin.

Conflicting reports on the execution date

News reports disagree on the exact date of the execution. CBS Miami and FOX 13 reported that the warrant sets the execution for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18, at Florida State Prison near Starke. The Palm Beach Post, in a USA TODAY Network-Florida report, gave the time as 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, and Florida death penalty trackers also list Nov. 19. Both CBS and FOX 13 referred to a Nov. 19 execution elsewhere in their own stories. The governor's office and the Florida Department of Corrections had not published the warrant online by Thursday, and The Florida Press could not independently confirm which date is correct. This story will be updated when the date is confirmed.

The killings in Tavernier

According to the Florida Supreme Court's account of the case, Susan Michelle MacIvor, 29, and her husband Michael MacIvor, 30, were found dead in their Tavernier Key home on Aug. 22, 1991. Some reports this week placed the killings in 1992, but the court record dates them to August 1991. Missy MacIvor, a local teacher, was eight months pregnant, and the couple's unborn child did not survive.

Michael MacIvor was struck in the back of the head with a blunt object, kicked and strangled, according to accounts of the case. Missy MacIvor was bound, raped and strangled. Overton worked as a clerk at an Amoco station in Tavernier, a couple of minutes from the couple's home, and knew them before the attack, according to court records and news reports.

At trial, James Zientek, who had been held with Overton at the Monroe County Detention Center, testified that Overton told him he broke into the home intending to rape Missy MacIvor and killed the couple, staging the scene to confuse investigators. The judge's sentencing order found that the evidence showed a carefully conceived plan to avoid detection and arrest was a fundamental part of the crime.

How DNA solved the case

The killings went unsolved for years. Investigators interviewed Overton in 1993, and he refused to give a DNA sample. He was arrested on an unrelated burglary charge in 1996 and again refused to provide blood. While in custody he cut his own throat with a razor blade; officers stopped the bleeding, and police obtained a court order to test blood left on a towel, according to the Palm Beach Post and court records.

In November 1996, Overton's DNA was compared with genetic material from bedding taken from the MacIvor home. The Florida Supreme Court's opinion says that test produced a match with a probability of more than one in six billion, and a second lab using a different method later reported a match at one in four trillion. Overton was charged in 1997.

In 1999 he was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, the killing of the unborn child, sexual battery and burglary. Jurors recommended death by a vote of 8 to 4 for Michael MacIvor's killing and 9 to 3 for Missy MacIvor's, according to the state Supreme Court. He was sentenced to death for the two murders, to life terms for sexual battery and burglary, and to 15 years for the death of the unborn child. The Florida Supreme Court upheld the convictions and death sentences on direct appeal in 2001.

Years of appeals

Overton has challenged his conviction repeatedly. He sought additional postconviction DNA testing, pointing to dark hair strands found on the tape used to bind Missy MacIvor that did not match him or the victims, the Palm Beach Post reported. Those requests were denied. Federal courts also reviewed his habeas petition; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit concluded it was properly denied and later affirmed the denial of a claim that prosecutors withheld evidence.

FOX 13 reported that officials had not said publicly whether Overton has appeals pending. Under the expedited schedule that follows every Florida death warrant, his lawyers are expected to file final challenges in state court and then ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty is petitioning for a stay, arguing that Overton was a survivor of the Dozier School for Boys, the state-run reform school in the Panhandle where former students have described decades of abuse. That claim comes from the advocacy group and has not been addressed by the state.

A record year for Florida executions

Florida set a state record with 19 executions in 2025. With Reaves, who was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. on Oct. 20, the state has carried out 18 executions so far in 2026, accounting for 18 of the 32 executions in the United States this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center figures cited by the Associated Press. Reaves, 77, was the eighth person older than 70 executed in Florida this year.

The next scheduled execution is Jesse Guardado, 64, set for Nov. 5 for the 2004 killing of Jackie Malone, 75, a Walton County woman who had helped him find housing and a job after his release from prison. If both the Guardado and Overton executions take place, Florida would first tie and then break its record from last year, and Overton's would be the 20th of 2026.

Not every warrant this year has led to an execution. Earlier in October, DeSantis withdrew the warrant for William Thompson, who was convicted in the 1976 killing of Sally Ivester in Miami, after three psychiatrists evaluated him for dementia and intellectual disability, according to the Palm Beach Post.

DeSantis, who leaves office in January, has said his goal is to bring justice to victims' families who have waited decades for death sentences to be carried out.

What's next

Overton's case now enters the compressed litigation schedule that follows a Florida death warrant, with expedited proceedings in the state circuit court and the Florida Supreme Court before any request to the U.S. Supreme Court. Absent a stay from a court or action by the governor, he is scheduled to die by lethal injection at Florida State Prison in mid-November, on Nov. 18 or Nov. 19 depending on the report, about two weeks after Guardado's scheduled execution. For the families of Michael and Missy MacIvor, the warrant comes more than 35 years after the killings shook the small Upper Keys community of Tavernier.