Curtis Beasley Execution Looms as Florida’s 16th of 2026

STARKE, Fla. — The Curtis Beasley execution is scheduled for Tuesday evening, when the 77-year-old is set to die by lethal injection at Florida State Prison, becoming the third person executed in Florida this month and the 16th this year under Gov. Ron DeSantis’ accelerated death-warrant pace.

Barring a last-minute stay, Beasley will receive a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at the state prison in Raiford, the Associated Press reported. A final appeal remains pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Curtis Beasley Execution: The 1995 Crime

Beasley was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery, and grand theft of a motor vehicle in the 1995 killing of 62-year-old Carolyn Monfort at her home in Polk County, Florida.

According to court records and AP reporting, Beasley had been staying at Monfort’s home in Dundee, south of Orlando, in August 1995 while pressure-washing and painting nearby apartments owned by her son-in-law. Monfort’s daughter went to the home after being unable to reach her for two days and found her mother’s body in a blood-splattered laundry room.

Investigators said Monfort suffered multiple blunt-force trauma injuries to the head — the medical examiner counted 15 to 20 blows, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal — and a bloody hammer head was found wrapped in a towel nearby. Authorities began searching for Beasley after a witness reported seeing him driving what turned out to be Monfort’s car. Prosecutors said he took $800 she had been given that day, along with her vehicle, and fled.

Beasley was arrested in Alabama five months later, working under a fake name for an electrical company, officials said. He was convicted and sentenced to death in May 1998, following a 10-2 jury recommendation for the death penalty.

A Case Built on Circumstantial Evidence

Beasley has persistently maintained his innocence. His attorneys noted there were no eyewitnesses to the killing, no fingerprints, and no confession — a defense his trial lawyers also pressed, arguing he had left the home before Monfort was killed.

Prosecutors countered with forensic evidence: investigators found Monfort’s blood on a shirt identified as one Beasley had been wearing, and the jury found him guilty on all counts. Two more people are scheduled for execution after Beasley as DeSantis continues the rapid-fire pace of death warrants he began in 2025, the News-Journal reported.

Final Appeals Denied — One Still Pending

Beasley’s attorneys filed an appeal citing his age and declining health, the non-unanimous jury recommendation, the short period between the death warrant and the execution, and the opacity of Florida’s warrant-selection process, which rests entirely with the governor.

On September 22, the Florida Supreme Court denied the appeal, rejecting arguments that executing a 77-year-old man suffering from cognitive decline would amount to cruel and unusual punishment, according to the AP. An appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is still pending as the execution hour approaches.

If the execution proceeds, Beasley would become Florida’s seventh prisoner over the age of 70 to be executed this year — a statistic that reflects the state’s status as what the AP called the nation’s busiest death chamber in 2026.

Florida’s Record Pace Continues

The Curtis Beasley execution is the latest in a relentless schedule. September alone has already seen two executions in Florida:

• September 1: Harold Gene Lucas, convicted of the 1976 murder of his 16-year-old girlfriend, Jill Piper, and the attempted murders of two of her teenage friends.
• September 10: Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., known as the “Hog Trail Killer,” convicted of the 1996 kidnapping and murder of Richard Alan Montgomery in Charlotte County.

After Beasley, William Lee Thompson, 74, is scheduled for execution on October 13 for the 1976 murder of a woman who was beaten, tortured, and killed with a chain-link belt, according to the U.S. Times Mirror.

It is also one of two executions scheduled in the United States this week: Tennessee plans to execute Christa Pike, 50, on Wednesday — the first execution of a woman in that state in 200 years, the AP reported.

Death-penalty researchers have attributed the national surge in executions largely to Florida. “All of this is really due to Florida,” one expert told Fox News earlier this month, noting that DeSantis “has scheduled an execution for roughly every two weeks in the state of Florida, both last year and this year.” Whether that pace holds through year’s end — and whether Beasley’s pending Supreme Court appeal changes the count — will be decided in the coming hours.