Florida man, 77, becomes 16th person to be executed in state this year | Florida

A 77-year-old Florida man was put to death Tuesday for his conviction in a fatal hammer attack on a woman decades ago, becoming the 16th person executed this year in the nation’s busiest death chamber.

Curtis Wilkie Beasley was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, authorities said. He was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery and grand theft auto in the 1995 hammer attack on Carolyn Monfort at her home south of Orlando.

The Florida Supreme Court recently rejected arguments that executing a man Beasley’s age who suffers from cognitive decline would amount to cruel and unusual punishment, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene Tuesday. Beasley is the seventh Florida prisoner over the age of 70 to be executed this year.

Beasley is also the 29th person, all male, to be executed in the United States this year. Tennessee plans to execute a woman for the first time in 200 years on Wednesday by administering a lethal injection to Christa Pike, 50, for killing a classmate in a jealous rage when they were both teenagers.

Court records show Beasley resided at Monfort’s Dundee home in August 1995 while he pressure washed and painted neighboring apartments owned by his son-in-law. Monfort’s daughter went to her home after being unable to reach her for two days and found her body in a blood-splattered laundry room.

Monfort had suffered multiple blunt force trauma injuries to the head and a bloody hammer head was found wrapped in a towel nearby, according to investigators.

Authorities began searching for Beasley after a witness reported seeing him driving what turned out to be Monfort’s car. Investigators determined that Beasley traveled to Miami and then moved to Alabama, where he was arrested while working under a false name for an electrical company, officials said. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1998.

The state is closing in on last year’s total of 19 executions, which was the most in Florida since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. In July, Florida executed two prisoners in a single day, the first state to do so in nearly a decade.

Two more executions are planned this year, but Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who leaves office in January, has temporarily suspended the next one.

William Lee Thompson, 74, is scheduled to be executed Oct. 13 for raping and fatally beating a woman in a Florida motel in 1976. After a doctor determined this month that Thompson might be suffering from dementia, DeSantis ordered a panel of three psychiatrists to examine him to determine whether he was fit to be executed.

DeSantis granted similar reprieves in 2023 and 2025, but both executions came after evaluations.

William Reaves, 77, is scheduled to be executed on October 20. He was convicted of fatally shooting a deputy outside a convenience store in 1986.

All executions in Florida are carried out by injection of a sedative, paralytic and heart-stopping drug, according to the state Department of Corrections.