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 Eglin Air Force Base Airman Edward Zakrzewski. He’s convicted of killing his wife and two children.

 In 1996, Zakrzewski 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 Zakrzewski 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 gurney. 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 deserved 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 onto 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 Zakrzewski 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 night college while maintaining his military career.

 He was 1 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 Ponem. 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 store in Montana, confirmed through defense attorney court testimony, when she met Edward Zakrzewski. 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 Zakrzewski III was 7 years old and known within the family by his Korean middle name Kim. Their daughter Anna Zakrzewski, 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 Eglin Air Force Base. In April of 1994, they purchased their first home together on Shrewsbury Road, 40 miles 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 Zakrzewski family heard Edward Zakrzewski 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 Eglin Air Force Base, not to law enforcement. That information remained buried until investigators were already standing inside the house on Shrewsbury Road. Retired Assistant State Attorney Bobby Elmore, who prosecuted this case, later described what law enforcement found inside that house as the worst crime scene he encountered in his entire career.

 Detective Joe Nelson of the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, the lead investigator assigned to the case, said the same. Two experienced professionals, both of whom had seen serious criminal cases throughout their careers, and both pointed to this one is unlike anything else they had worked. But the investigation revealed something about the timeline that reframes the entire case.

The night before the murders, the evening of June 8th, 1994, Zakharkevski went on a drinking binge. That same night, he withdrew more than $5,400 from the couple’s joint bank account. That withdrawal happened before his son called him at work the following morning. Before any conversation about divorce occurred on June 9th, the money was already gone the night before.

Circuit Judge G. Robert Barron, who presided over this case, addressed this directly. He described what Zakharkevski carried out as the product of months and undeniably hours of cool, calm reflection and deliberate planning, not a reaction to a phone call, a decision that had already been made. June 9th, 1994 began as a standard work day.

Edward Zakharkevski reported to Eglin Air Force Base that morning on time in uniform with nothing in his conduct signaling anything unusual to those around him. Then his son called. 7-year-old Edward, known to the family as Kim, reached his father at the base that morning with a message. His mother wanted a divorce and planned to take the children back to South Korea.

 Whether Sylvia directed her son to make that call has never been conclusively established. What the documented record shows is what Zakharkevski did in the hours that followed. During his lunch break, he drove to an Army surplus store and purchased a machete. He then went to the house on Shrewsbury Road before returning to the base.

Inside the house, he sharpened the blade. He positioned a crowbar in the bedroom. He cut a length of rope. Three items, each prepared and placed before his family set foot through that door. He then returned to Eglin Air Force Base and completed his shift. Every colleague who encountered him that afternoon reported nothing out of the ordinary.

After leaving the base, he stopped at a local bar and met with a fellow military veteran. During that conversation, Zakrzewski raised a question. He asked what a person must feel when they take another person’s life. His friend registered it as a passing remark and thought nothing further of it.

 He would later repeat that exchange to investigators. Zakrzewski returned home that evening. He sent the children to watch television and called for Sylvia to come to the bedroom. She did not come. He went to the living room, located her, and struck her with a crowbar. No argument preceded it. No exchange of words. The case record documents the assault as immediate and without provocation.

He moved Sylvia to the bedroom where the assault continued before he used the rope to strangle her. Medical examiner Dr. Edward Harvard, who conducted the postmortem examination and later testified in court, confirmed that despite sustaining a fractured skull and multiple wounds to her back, Sylvia was still alive at the point of strangulation. She was 34 years old.

Zakrzewski then called his 7-year-old son Edward into the bathroom and told him to brush his teeth. Then, separately, he called 5-year-old Anna into the same room. Dr. Harvard’s autopsy findings documented that both children had injuries on their arms and hands consistent with defensive wounds. The kind sustained when a person instinctively raises their limbs to protect themselves.

At 7 and 5 years old, they both did exactly that. Bloodstain analyst Jan Johnson testified during the court proceedings that based on her analysis of the physical evidence, Anna had been positioned in a kneeling posture over the edge of the bathtub when she was struck. Her brother was already there. The The record confirmed that Anna had witnessed what happened to Edward before the same fate reached her.

Zakszewski placed all three members of his family together in the bathroom. He went to the sink, washed up, changed into clean clothing, and left the house. He drove to a bar and remained there for several hours, drinking heavily until he was severely intoxicated. Later that night, police officers on patrol found him passed out in his car.

They took his keys, told him to collect them from the station in the morning, and left. They had no reason to look further. No reason to connect him to anything beyond a man who had too much to drink. They had no idea what was inside the house on Shrewsbury Road. The morning of June 10th, 1994, Zakszewski did not have his car keys.

Police had taken them the night before. He returned to Shrewsbury Road on foot and forced entry through a window. Inside, he changed into his work uniform, found a spare key, and drove to Eglin Air Force Base. He reported in. He gave no indication to anyone around him that anything had occurred. He left before his shift ended.

 He drove to the bank and withdrew the remaining balance from the account. Then he drove to Orlando International Airport and boarded a flight to Hawaii. By the time that plane was airborne, no one in Florida knew where he had gone. The house sat untouched for 3 days. On June 13th, Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office investigators entered and processed the property.

 Detective Joe Nelson led that work. Three pieces of forensic evidence emerged immediately. First, blood was found on the living room couch located beneath a shirt belonging to Zakszewski. Second, blood was recovered from a pair of his socks inside the laundry hamper. He had changed clothes before leaving, and what he left behind connected him directly to what had taken place inside that house.

Third, his blue 1992 Geo Prism was not on the property. Not stolen. Not towed. Simply gone alongside its owner. In the context of everything else recovered at that scene, a missing vehicle registered to the primary suspect was treated immediately as evidence of deliberate flight.

 Detective Nelson later stated that in his entire law enforcement career, he had never worked a scene of that nature. That assessment required no elaboration. Investigators built the physical case methodically before moving to the next step. The formal arrest warrant for Edward James Zakrzewski II was issued on June 16th, 1994, 3 days after the bodies were discovered.

When law enforcement moved, the documented record was fully behind them. On June 13th, 1994, personnel from Eglin Air Force Base arrived at the house on Shrewsbury Road. Zakrzewski had failed to report for duty and had been flagged as absent without leave. They contacted the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.

Deputies responded and met them at the property. They found a broken window. They went inside. Retired Assistant State Attorney Bobby Elmore later described what law enforcement encountered in that house as the worst crime scene of his entire professional career. For a prosecutor with his level of experience, that statement carries full weight.

 Edward Zakrzewski was identified as the prime suspect without delay. The FBI was brought in. The United States Marshals Service joined the investigation. His family home in Kalamazoo, Michigan was placed under active surveillance. Every known contact was reached and questioned. Nothing came back. No confirmed sightings. No reliable information pointing to his location. The trail was gone.

 Now, here is the context that explains why this case received almost no national media coverage despite its severity. The night before the bodies were discovered, Sunday, June 12th, 1994, the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found outside Nicole’s home in Brentwood, California. By the morning of June 13th, O.J.

Simpson had been publicly named as the prime suspect. On that same Monday, the exact day deputies were processing the scene on Shrewsbury Road, a white Ford Bronco moved slowly down a California freeway with O.J. Simpson inside. That pursuit was broadcast live to an estimated 95 million viewers across the country.

 95 million people watched that freeway. Sylvia Zakrzewski, Edward Zakrzewski, 37 years old, Anna Zakrzewski, 5 years old. Three people whose case deserved national attention received almost none of it. The story was buried before most of the country ever heard it. On November 19th, 1994, Zakrzewski was formally indicted in Okaloosa County on three counts of first-degree murder.

 The legal framework was in place. The prosecution was ready. All that remained was bringing him back to face it. Edward Zakrzewski landed in Hawaii with one deliberate advantage. He had no history there. No family. No former contacts. No connection of any kind that investigators could follow. That was not coincidence.

 It was the reason he chose Hawaii specifically. He arrived in Maui first and kept a low profile while his funds held. When the money ran out, he moved to Molokai, one of the smaller and more remote islands in the chain. He was living under a false name. He presented himself as Michael Ray Green. Some documentation from the period also list the alias as Robert Michael Green.

 On Molokai, he met a pastor and his wife operating a religious commune on the island. He introduced himself using his alias and presented himself as someone looking for work and a fresh start. 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 4 months that held. The FBI and US Marshals were working every lead on the mainland. Zachefsky 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 Zachefsky segment appeared not as a featured story, but as part of a short fugitive hotline block alongside two other wanted individuals, Alan Virl Sneed and Nazario Palacios. Even the broadcast that ended his run did not treat him as a headline case.

The pastor and his wife were watching. Zachefsky was in the room with them. When his photograph appeared on screen, the pastor turned to him and noted the resemblance directly. Zachefsky 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, Zachefsky walked into a police station on Molokai Island and surrendered. He gave his real name. The search was over. On October 25th, 1994, he was extradited back to Florida.

 Zachefsky 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 pleas to all three counts of first-degree murder.

 The evidence left him no other credible path. The penalty phase followed. The jury would determine life or death. Defense attorneys Isaac 전환 and Alton Killam focused entirely on mitigation. They presented his military service record and pointed to a claimed religious conversion in custody. Zakharshevsky took the stand and expressed remorse.

Attorney Killam argued he acted toward his children out of mercy, claiming he feared they would face discrimination as mixed-race children in South Korea. Killam 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 Zakharshevsky’s personal writings referencing Friedrich Nietzsche, directly dismantling the religious remorse narrative with Zakharshevsky’s own words. The jury voted 7 to 5 for death on the murders of Sylvia and Edward III. On Anna’s murder, they deadlocked 6 to 6. Judge G.

 Robert Barron overrode that deadlock. He sentenced Zakharshevsky 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 seven to five jury vote. A deadlocked six to six 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 eight to four jury majority for a death sentence. Zackchewski’s case never reached that threshold on any count.

 Floridians 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. Post-conviction 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 Zackchewski family murders were formally designated as one of the most heinous crimes in the history of Northwest Florida.

 On July 1st, 2025, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant. Zackchewski’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. Every one 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 Del Liberato of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty led a prayer service outside Florida State Prison that day. One final detail. In 1998, Gulf War veteran Jeffrey Hutchinson was convicted of fatally shooting his girlfriend and her three children in the same Okaloosa County.

 He was also sentenced to death and executed on May 1st, 2025, 3 months before Zakrzewski. Two military-connected men, same county, both executed in the same year. July 31st, 2025, Florida State Prison near Starke. Paul Walker, Deputy Communications Director for the Florida Department of Corrections, confirmed the official details of that day.

 Zakrzewski woke at 5:15 in the morning. His final meal was fried pork chops, fried onions, potatoes, bacon, buttered toast, root beer, ice cream, pie, and coffee. One visitor came that morning. Their identity was not disclosed. No spiritual adviser was requested. No family members from either side were present. Detective Joe Nelson made the 4-hour drive to the prison.

 The lead investigator who had worked this case since June of 1994 had never attended an execution in his career. He attended this one. Before the procedure began, Zakrzewski recited lines from Robert Frost’s poem Stopping by Woods on a snowy evening. He stopped before completing it. Then he delivered his final words.

 “I want to thank the good people of the Sunshine State for killing me in the most cold, calculated, clean, humane, efficient way possible. I have no complaint.” Cold, calculated. The same words Judge Barron used in 1996 to describe the planning behind June 9th, 1994. Zakrzewski was pronounced dead at 6:12 in the evening.

 It was Florida’s ninth execution of 2025, a modern state record. Texas and South Carolina each recorded four that same year. Florida had not reached that number since 1976. Outside the prison, Detective Nelson spoke to reporters. His words were brief and direct. It’s over now. It needed to stop. This case leaves behind facts that are hard to set aside.

 A neighbor heard Edward Zawadzki threaten his family on more than one occasion and chose to say nothing. Not to Sylvia. Not to anyone. A 7-year-old boy made a phone call to his father one morning with no understanding of what it would set in motion. Sylvia wanted to go home. She spent years trying to get back to South Korea. She never made it.

 Anna was 5 years old. She never got the chance to grow up. And the country nearly missed all of it because of what was unfolding on a California freeway that same week. Three people who deserved full national attention were passed over completely. The jury deadlocked on Anna’s murder. Under Florida law as it stands today, that deadlock would have meant life in prison. A judge overrode it.

 Under current Florida law, that override would not have been permitted. Was that justice? Or a system bending its own rules to reach a conclusion it had already decided on? Leave your answer in the comments below. Sylvia Zawadzki, 34 years old. Edward Zawadzki III, known as Kim, 7 years old.

 Anna Zawadzki, 5 years old. Edward James Zawadzki II was born on January 31st, 1965. He was executed on July 31st, 2025, exactly 60 years to the day. His wife and children never came close to that number. Detective Joe Nelson first walked into that house on Shrewsbury Road in June of 1994. He carried this case for 31 years. On July 31st, 2025, he drove 4 hours to Florida State Prison to sit in that witness room and see it through to the end.

 That says everything about what these three lives meant to the people who refused to let this case disappear. If this documentary reached you, share it. Most people have never heard the names Sylvia, Edward, and Anna Zakrzewski. That needs to change. Subscribe to this channel for more cases like this one.