Record 12th execution set in Florida this year for a man convicted of killing wife’s family

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of killing his estranged wife’s sister and parents and setting their house on fire is scheduled to put to death Wednesday, which would be a record 12th execution in the state in 2025.

David Pittman, 63, is set to receive a lethal injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke under a death warrant signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Republican governor has signed more death warrants this year than any of his predecessors.

Pittman’s final appeal was rejected Tuesday by the U.S. Supreme Court.

So far, two more Florida executions are scheduled for this fall. Victor Tony Jones is set to die on Sept. 30 for the 1990 killings of two people during a robbery and Samuel Lee Smithers is scheduled for execution on Oct. 14 for the murders of two women in 1996.

Pittman was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 on three counts of first-degree murder, according to court records. Jurors also found him guilty of arson and grand theft.

Pittman and his wife, Marie, were going through a contentious divorce in May 1990, when the killings occurred, and investigators say he had threatened to harm her family several times.

Trial testimony showed Pittman cut a phone line at the Mulberry, Florida home of his wife’s parents, Clarence Knowles, 60, and his wife, 50-year-old Barbara Knowles. Pittman stabbed the couple to death as well as their other daughter, 21-year-old Bonnie Knowles. Pittman then set their house on fire and stole Bonnie Knowles’ car, which he also set ablaze. The family was found dead on May 15 of that year.

A witness during his 1991 trial identified Pittman as the person running away from the burning car. A jailhouse informant also testified that Pittman had admitted to the killings. Jurors recommended the death penalty on a 9-3 vote.

Pittman’s most recent appeals focused on recent evidence indicating he suffers from intellectual disabilities, including an IQ in the low 70s, that was apparent at the time of the killings. His lawyers say his execution would violate the Constitution’s protection against putting to death a person with severe mental problems.

Lawyers for the state disagreed, contending it is now too late for Pittman to claim mental impairment from years earlier. The Florida Supreme Court, reversing a previous decision, ruled in 2020 that such claims cannot apply retroactively.

“Pittman’s underlying intellectual disability claim is meritless. He was not intellectually disabled when he murdered the three victims in 1990 or when he went to trial in 1991,” the state attorneys told the U.S. Supreme Court.

Before Pittman, Curtis Windom, convicted of the 1992 murders of his girlfriend, her mother and another man.

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