STARK, Fla. (AP) — The man convicted of killing his girlfriend, her mother, a man whom he claims to owes him $2,000, is due for receiving a fatal injection Thursday, a record 11th execution in Florida.
Curtis Wyndham, 59, is the 30th person to be executed in the US this year, and Florida led behind the gust of a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. The 12th man, David Joseph Pittman, 63, is scheduled to be killed in Florida on September 17th.
Wyndham, whose final appeal of his stay was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, is scheduled to be executed at the Florida prison near Stark. He was sentenced to murder Johnny Lee, Valerie Davis and Mary Rubin of the Orlando area on November 7, 1992.
According to court records, a friend told Wyndham that Lee, who appears to owes $2,000 to Wyndham, won $114 at the Greyhound racetrack. Wyndham tells his friend, “You’re going to read about me,” and tells him he’s going to kill Lee.
Windom went to Walmart and purchased a .38 caliber revolver and a box of 50 shells, according to court testimony. Shortly afterwards, Windom drove to find Lee, finding him and shooting him twice in the back from the car, after which two shots stood nearby on top of the victim.
Windom then ran to Davis’ apartment and fatally shot his girlfriend “without provocation” in front of a friend who witnessed the murder, court records show. Wyndham randomly shot and injured another man before he met Davis’ mother, Mary Rubin, before driving to his daughter’s apartment. Rubin was shot twice in the car at the stop sign.
Wyndham was sentenced to death for murder and sentenced to 22 years for attempted murder. Davis was the mother of one of Wyndham’s children and a daughter campaigning to stop her father’s execution.
“We were all traumatized,” her daughter Curticia Wyndham told the Orlando Sentinel. “It hurts. It’s a lot of pain. Life never grew up. But if we can forgive him, I don’t know why people who have not experienced our pain have the right to say he should die.”
Windom’s lawyers have filed numerous appeals over the years, including the allegations that evidence of his mental issues should be introduced in court. However, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that it was not biased against Wyndham as prosecutors offered evidence that Wyndham was a drug dealer and the two women he killed were police informants.
Many of Windom’s appeals focus on the claim that he was represented by an incompetent lawyer in terms of presenting evidence of mental health.
Since the US Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, Florida’s highest annual total of enforcement was eight in 2014. Florida executed more people this year than any other state, while Texas and South Carolina each placed fourth and second.
The latest execution in Florida took place on August 19, when 67-year-old Kale Bates was murdered for the murder of a woman who was accused of from the Florida Panhandle Insurance Office.
Florida’s executions will be carried out using sedatives, paralytics, heart-stopping drugs – sedatives, paralytics, drugs, according to the state Department of Corrections.
