Florida Executes Frank Walls for the 1987 Murders of Edward Alger and Ann Peterson
Walls, 58, who also admitted three other killings of women in Okaloosa County, was put to death at Florida State Prison in the state's 19th execution of 2025.
Published
More than thirty-eight years after he killed an airman and his girlfriend in the Florida Panhandle, Frank Athen Walls was put to death on December 18, 2025. He was 58. The execution, by a three-drug lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, was the state's nineteenth that year, a record for the modern era. He was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m.
Before it began, Walls apologized. "If any of the members of the family are here, I am sorry for all of the things I did, the pain I caused, and all of that you have suffered all these years," he said, according to a spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had signed the death warrant on November 18.
July 22, 1987
In the early morning hours of July 22, 1987, Walls went to the Okaloosa County mobile home of Edward Alger, an airman at Eglin Air Force Base, and his girlfriend, Ann Peterson, and woke them. According to the 1992 sentencing order, he forced Peterson to bind Alger's wrists and ankles. Alger broke free and fought him; Walls cut his throat and shot him three times in the head and neck. Then he turned to Peterson.
"Prior to the infliction of that (gunshot) wound, the defendant had informed her of the fate of her boyfriend, Edward," the order said. "She was curled up crying as she was told of what had happened to Edward. By the defendant's own admission, it was his intent to leave no witnesses."
Walls was arrested the day after the bodies were found, when his roommate told police about his odd behavior; a search turned up items from the crime scene, and he admitted the killings. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1988. The Florida Supreme Court reversed that conviction, and in 1992 he was convicted again and again sentenced to death.
Three more women
After his conviction, DNA evidence linked Walls to the rape and killing of Audrey Gygi in May 1987. He pleaded no contest, avoiding another trial and a possible second death sentence. As part of a deal with prosecutors, he also admitted responsibility for the killings of Tommie Lou Whiddon in March 1985 and Cynthia Sue Condra in September 1986.
In their last appeals, his lawyers argued that he was intellectually disabled and that executing him would violate the Eighth Amendment, and they raised concerns about his health and the state's lethal-injection procedure. The Florida Supreme Court and a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to halt the execution, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay that afternoon without explanation.
Walls was convicted at trial of the murders of Edward Alger and Ann Peterson. He pleaded no contest in Audrey Gygi's death and admitted responsibility for the deaths of Tommie Lou Whiddon and Cynthia Sue Condra under an agreement with prosecutors; those three cases were not tried. The account of July 22, 1987 is from the 1992 sentencing order, as quoted by the News Service of Florida.
Sources
- Florida executes its 19th inmate of 2025, WWSB / News Service of Florida (Jim Saunders)
- Florida man executed for the killings of a man and his girlfriend during a home invasion, The Associated Press (David Fischer), via KSAT