Curtis Wilkie Beasley, 77, was executed by lethal injection on Tuesday, marking the 16th execution in Florida this year at the state’s most active death chamber.
Authorities pronounced Beasley dead at 6:12 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery, and grand theft auto for the 1995 hammer killing of Carolyn Monfort at her home south of Orlando.
The Florida Supreme Court recently rejected claims that executing an elderly man experiencing cognitive decline would constitute cruel and unusual punishment, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene on Tuesday. Beasley is the seventh Florida prisoner over 70 executed this year.
Beasley was the 29th person executed nationwide this year, all of whom were men. On Wednesday, Tennessee is scheduled to execute Christa Pike, 50, by lethal injection for killing a classmate in a jealous rage during their teens — the first execution of a woman in the state in 200 years.
Court records indicate Beasley was staying at Monfort’s Dundee home in August 1995 while working as a pressure-washer and painter for apartments owned by her son-in-law. Monfort’s daughter discovered her body in a blood-spattered laundry room after failing to reach her for two days.
Monfort suffered multiple blunt-force trauma injuries to the head, and investigators found a bloody hammer head wrapped in a towel nearby.
Authorities launched a search after a witness spotted Beasley driving Monfort’s car. Investigators learned he had fled to Miami and later relocated to Alabama, where he was arrested under a false name while working for an electrical company. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1998.
Florida is approaching last year’s record total of 19 executions, the highest since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. In July, the state executed two prisoners in a single day — the first state to do so in nearly a decade.
Two additional executions are scheduled for this year, but Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who leaves office in January, has temporarily halted the next one.
William Lee Thompson, 74, is scheduled for execution on October 13 for raping and fatally beating a woman at a Florida motel in 1976. After a doctor determined this month that Thompson may be suffering from dementia, DeSantis ordered a panel of three psychiatrists to evaluate his competency for execution.
DeSantis issued similar stays in 2023 and 2025, though both executions proceeded after psychiatric evaluations.
William Reaves, 77, is scheduled for execution on October 20. He was convicted of fatally shooting a deputy outside a convenience store in 1986.
All Florida executions are performed using a three-drug protocol consisting of a sedative, a paralytic, and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state Department of Corrections.
