Trigger Warning: This article contains mentions of violence and sexual abuse. Reader discretion is advised.
After many attempts to avoid his fate, Frank Athen Walls was finally sentenced to death by lethal injection for killing Eglin Air Force Base airman Edward Alger and his girlfriend Ann Peterson in July 1987. The sentence is set to be carried out today at 6:00 PM at The Florida State Prison located in Stark.
Walls is reportedly the 19th man to be executed in the state of Florida since the death penalty’s reinstatement in 1976 by the US Supreme Court. According to court documents, Walls’s brutal crime unfolded when he broke into the late couple’s home to commit theft. Upon encountering the couple, he threatened the two at gunpoint and tied them up.
1/2 #Frank_Athen_Walls in #Florida to be executed today. Members of the German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty are thinking of offenders and victims and their relatives and friends pic.twitter.com/xTMnHTTgLP
— German Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (@GCADP) December 18, 2025
In a desperate attempt not just defend his home but also Peterson, airman Alger fought back and tried to fight him off after freeing himself from the binds. After quite a fight, Walls cut Alger’s throat using a knife and murdered him in cold blood by shooting him in the head.
Moments after Alger was murdered, Peterson, was also shot in the head as she attempted to free herself to escape. Walls was long gone after police arrived at the horrific crime scene. It was Walls’ former roommate, reportedly, Thomas “Animal” Farnham, who informed the police about his friend’s alleged weird behavior at the time.
When they arrived at the scene to arrest and investigate his home, they found the murder weapon and other items that were used to commit the atrocious crime. After hours of grilling him about the murders, Walls confessed to three other killings, including a r—.
Shortly after his arrest and conviction, police found crucial DNA evidence that revealed him to be Audrey Gygi’s abuser and killer from May 1987. Despite strong proof, Walls pleaded no contest and was spared the death penalty at the time due to his intellectual disability.
BREAKING: Governor DeSantis has signed a death warrant for Frank Walls, an intellectually disabled man who should be barred from execution. He was sentenced to death for the 1987 murder of Ann Peterson. The execution is scheduled for December 18 at 6 pm. pic.twitter.com/rORXxoGcG4
— FADP (@FADPorg) November 19, 2025
To avoid the death sentence, Walls reportedly struck a deal with the prosecutors and confessed to the murders over two years. He killed Tommie Lou Whiddon in March 1985 and then Cynthia Sue Condra in September 1986, shortly before committing the home invasion murders.
Walls and his attorneys tried their best to avoid the death penalty; however, the Florida Supreme Court made a swift decision to rule against disqualifying him from execution. Thus resulting in the death penalty set to be carried out today, 18th December, 2025.
Florida tops the U.S. in death penalty cases this year, administering lethal injections to 19 people, including Walls. Other states that have carried out executions include Alabama, Texas, and South Carolina, each having executed 5 people, respectively. In comparison to the electric chair, which was used in the execution of notorious criminals such as Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, shocking them, the lethal injection stops their heart with a mixture of a paralytic and sedative drug.
