Curtis Wilkie Beasley
Curtis Wilkie Beasley, 77, had spent nearly three decades on death row at Florida State Prison near Starke. His lawyers argued that his age and cognitive decline, his failing health, which they said left him unable to walk far without a wheelchair, and a death recommendation that was not unanimous made his execution unjust. The Florida Supreme Court rejected those claims and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene, and the state executed him by lethal injection on the evening of September 29, 2026, with reports giving 6:12 p.m. as the time he was pronounced dead. In his final statement he said, "I want to apologize for all the mistakes I made." Opponents of the death penalty, including Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, said his case showed arbitrariness in the state's use of non-unanimous jury sentencing, and church groups gathered outside the prison to pray and sing.
Cause of death, as reported: Executed by the state. His lawyers argued that his age and cognitive decline made the execution cruel and unusual punishment, and that the non-unanimous jury recommendation made it unjust.
Reported by: Florida Department of Corrections (the agency that held him); news reports.
News reports (13)
- Execution List 1976-present
- Florida executes 16th inmate of 2026, seventh death-row prisoner over 70
- Florida man executed for 1995 Polk County murder
- Florida executes 77-year-old man convicted of a deadly hammer attack on Polk County woman
- Florida executes 77-year-old man convicted of 1995 Polk County hammer attack murder
- Florida executes 77-year-old man convicted of deadly hammer attack on woman
- Recap: Florida executes claw hammer killer. Last meal, final words
- Florida executes 77-year-old man convicted of a deadly hammer attack on a woman
- Curtis Wilkie Beasley executed in Florida, marking 16th death penalty in 2026
- Florida executes 77-year-old man convicted of a deadly hammer attack on a woman
- Florida Executes Man, 77, Convicted Of Deadly Hammer Attack Of Woman
- Florida schedules two executions on the same day: one of the condemned recounted his crime on Netflix
- Revealed: The last words of a man executed in Florida for murdering a woman in 1995