On Tuesday, September 30, at 6 p.m., Florida is scheduled to execute Victor Tony Jones for the brutal 1990 murders of his employers, Matilda and Jacob Nestor.
- But this case raises a troubling moral question: should the state execute someone it helped create through decades of systematic abuse?
Jones, now 64, is a survivor of the notorious Okeechobee School, a state-run facility that operated as what attorney Troy Rafferty calls a “torture chamber” rather than a reform school. The Florida Supreme Court’s 5-1 decision on Wednesday to deny Jones’ final appeal highlights a disturbing contradiction in Florida’s justice system.
State-Sanctioned Abuse
The Okeechobee School, along with the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, represented one of the darkest chapters in Florida’s history. These institutions, which operated for 70 and 111 years respectively, subjected children to horrific abuse. As Rafferty describes in a recent interview, children were sent there for minor infractions like skipping school or smoking cigarettes, only to endure systematic torture, sexual abuse, and forced labor.
- Jones, who has an intellectual disability with an IQ under 70, witnessed and experienced unimaginable horror — children were randomly selected at night and sent to beating and rape rooms. At Dozier, the building was called “The White House.”
The Cruel Contradiction
What makes Jones’ case so egregious is the state’s recent acknowledgment of these crimes. In 2024, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the Dozier School for Boys and Okeechobee School Victim Compensation Bill, which allocated $20 million to compensate survivors who suffered abuse at the two state reform schools between 1940 and 1975.
Rafferty fought for the bill and attended the signing ceremony. The state essentially apologized and paid damages for the abuse these men suffered as children.
“Here’s your check,” Rafferty summarizes the state’s message for Jones, “and by the way, here’s your death warrant.”
This contradiction wasn’t lost on the Florida Catholic Conference, which wrote to DeSantis: “It cannot be that with one hand the state pays out compensation to men abused and tortured as children in its care while at the same time with its other hand puts one of these victims to death.”
Justice vs. Vengeance
Rafferty isn’t asking for Jones to be freed. He filed an amicus brief requesting commutation to life in prison, a recognition that Jones must pay for his crimes while acknowledging the state’s role in creating the circumstances that led to them.
“Sometimes justice calls for the sword and sometimes justice calls for mercy,” Rafferty explains. “Why should the state murder a victim of the state?”
The Supreme Court rejected these arguments as “procedurally barred,” noting that the abuse occurred nearly 50 years ago and wasn’t raised during the original trial. But this reasoning ignores a crucial fact: when Jones was tried in the early 1990s, these schools were still operating.
The courts dismissed abuse claims because the systematic torture was ongoing and officially denied.
A Record Year for Executions
If carried out, Jones’ execution would make him the 13th person executed in Florida this year – a modern record since the death penalty’s reinstatement in 1976. The previous record was eight executions in 1984 and 2014.
Governor DeSantis now holds Jones’ life in his hands. The case presents a fundamental test of justice: can a state rightfully execute someone whose violent behavior resulted from abuse inflicted by that same state?
- As Rafferty puts it, “In a just society, this would not happen.”
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