Florida to put man to death for a triple murder in record 11th execution this year

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of killing his girlfriend, her mother and a man he claimed owed him $2,000 is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday in what would be a record 11th execution in the state of Florida this year.

Curtis Windom, 59, would become the 30th person executed this year in the U.S., with Florida leading the way behind a flurry of death warrants signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. A 12th man, David Joseph Pittman, 63, is scheduled to be put to death in Florida on Sept. 17.

Windom, whose final appeals for a stay were rejected Wednesday by the U.S. Supreme Court, is scheduled to be executed at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was sentenced to die for the Nov. 7, 1992, killing of Johnnie Lee, Valerie Davis and Mary Lubin in the Orlando area.

Court records show a friend told Windom that day that Lee, who supposedly owed Windom the $2,000, had won $114 at a greyhound racetrack. Windom told the friend that “you’re gonna read about me” and that he planned to kill Lee.

Windom went to a Walmart to buy a .38-caliber revolver and a box of 50 shells, according to court testimony. Not long after that, Windom drove to find Lee, located him and shot him twice in the back from his car, followed by two more shots standing over the victim at close range.

Then Windom ran to Davis’ apartment and fatally shot his girlfriend “with no provocation” in front of a friend who witnessed the murder, court records show. Windom randomly shot and wounded another man before encountering Davis’ mother, Mary Lubin, as she drove to her daughter’s apartment. Lubin was shot twice in her car at a stop sign.

Windom received death sentences for the murders and a 22-year sentence for the attempted murder. Davis was the mother of one of Windom’s children, a daughter who has been campaigning to halt her father’s execution.

“We’ve all been traumatized,” the daughter, Curtisia Windom, told the Orlando Sentinel. “It hurt. It hurt a lot. Life was not easy growing up. But if we could forgive him, I don’t see why people on the street who haven’t been through our pain have a right to say he should die.”

Windom’s lawyers have filed numerous appeals over the years, including a claim that evidence of his mental problems should have been introduced at trial. But the Florida Supreme Court ruled that was not prejudicial against Windom because prosecutors then would have presented evidence that Windom was a drug dealer and the two women he killed were police informants.

Many of Windom’s appeals have focused on claims that he was represented by an incompetent lawyer when it came to presenting mental health evidence.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, the highest previous annual total of Florida executions was eight in 2014. Florida has executed more people than any other state this year, while Texas and South Carolina are tied for second place with four each.

The most recent execution in Florida took place on Aug. 19 when Kayle Bates, 67, was put to death for the killing of a woman he abducted from a Florida Panhandle insurance office.

Florida executions are carried out using a three-drug lethal injection — a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state Department of Corrections.