Florida Murderer and Rapist Executed After 38 Years on Death Row
LAST BREATH
Duane Owen, a 62-year-old man who stabbed a 14-year-old girl and bludgeoned a mother to death decades ago, was executed Thursday by lethal injection after 38 years on death row. In 1984, Owen broke into a Florida home and stabbed Karen Slattery 18 times before raping her as the children she was babysitting slept nearby. Only two months later, he busted into a different house and dealt numerous fatal blows with a hammer to 38-year-old Georgianna Worden’s head and raped the single mother. He was 24 years old when he was sentenced to death in 1985, and the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday denied the killer’s eleventh-hour appeal. The Palm Beach Post reported that his last meal was a bacon cheeseburger without a bun, onion rings, strawberries, a vanilla milkshake, and coffee. Owen had no visitors, but family members of the victims witnessed the execution.