STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A man on death row for the murders of his girlfriend, her mother, and a man alleged to have owed him $2,000 is set for lethal injection this Thursday, marking what could be Florida’s unprecedented 11th execution of the year.
Curtis Windom, 59, stands to become the 30th individual executed in the U.S. this year, with Florida at the forefront, driven by a surge of death warrants signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Another man, David Joseph Pittman, 63, is also slated for execution in Florida on September 17.
Windom, whose last-ditch appeals for clemency were denied by the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, is slated for execution at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was condemned for the November 7, 1992, slayings of Johnnie Lee, Valerie Davis, and Mary Lubin in the Orlando region.
According to court documents, a friend told Windom that Lee, allegedly indebted to Windom for $2,000, had recently won $114 at a greyhound racetrack. Windom allegedly stated “you’re gonna read about me” and revealed his intent to kill Lee.
Testimonies indicate Windom purchased a .38-caliber revolver and a box containing 50 bullets from a Walmart. Shortly thereafter, he found Lee, shot him twice from his vehicle, then twice more at close range while standing over him.
Following this, Windom proceeded to Davis’ apartment and shot his girlfriend “without provocation,” according to a friend’s eyewitness account detailed in court records. Windom also randomly shot and injured another man before confronting Davis’ mother, Mary Lubin, as she was driving to her daughter’s apartment, fatally shooting her twice 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.
