TODAY: 16th Execution As 77-Year-Old Killer Set To Die

Typewriter typing the words death sentence on paper — Photo: WINDCOLORS / Shutterstock

Florida is set to put a 77-year-old man to death on Tuesday for a hammer killing that happened more than 30 years ago.

Story Snapshot

Curtis Beasley, 77, faces lethal injection at Florida State Prison for the 1995 murder of Carolyn Monfort in Polk County.
Governor Ron DeSantis signed the death warrant on August 26, 2026, setting the execution for September 29 at 6 p.m.
The Florida Supreme Court rejected Beasley’s final state appeal on September 22, denying a stay with an immediate mandate.
Beasley’s case is part of Florida’s record-breaking 2026 execution pace, its 16th of the year.

A Three-Decade-Old Killing Comes to a Close

Curtis Beasley was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery, and grand theft auto for killing Carolyn Monfort in August 1995.

Multiple news outlets, including the Associated Press and the Tampa Bay Times, describe the crime the same way: Beasley beat the Dundee woman to death with a hammer in Polk County. That description has stayed consistent across every report on the case.

The case moved through Florida’s courts for decades before reaching this point. Beasley’s conviction and sentence survived direct appeal and years of postconviction challenges. The legal fight finally reached its end this year, when the state’s highest court closed the door on further review.

The Governor’s Warrant Sets the Clock

Governor DeSantis signed Beasley’s death warrant on August 26, 2026, scheduling the execution for September 29. That date has held firm through every subsequent court filing.

The execution will take place by lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Starke, the same facility where the state has carried out most of its executions this year.

Beasley’s attorneys pushed back against the warrant, arguing the execution itself would amount to cruel and unusual punishment given his age and claims of cognitive decline.

Those arguments echo challenges raised in other Florida cases involving aging death row inmates, but the state’s courts have consistently rejected the theory that age alone bars an otherwise lawful sentence.

Florida’s Highest Court Closes the Case

The Florida Supreme Court issued its final ruling on September 22, 2026, affirming the denial of postconviction relief and rejecting Beasley’s request for a stay.

The court’s order, identified as case SC2026-1399, stated the mandate would issue immediately and that no rehearing would be considered. That left no further avenue in state court.

Beasley’s legal team reportedly turned to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case’s final days, a common last step for death row inmates once state remedies run out.

Filing there does not change the fact that every state court that reviewed the case, from trial through final appeal, upheld the conviction and sentence.

Curtis Wilkie Beasley, 77, is scheduled to be executed in Florida on Tuesday for the 1995 killing of Carolyn Monfort. Beasley was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery and grand theft auto and sentenced to death in 1998.

Beasley is due to receive a three-drug lethal… pic.twitter.com/OBmJqAC14J

— India Today Global (@ITGGlobal) September 29, 2026

Part of a Bigger Pattern in Florida

Beasley’s execution is not an isolated event. It marks Florida’s 16th execution of 2026, extending a pace that has made the state the clear national leader in carrying out death sentences.

Florida accounted for roughly 40 percent of all U.S. executions in 2025 alone, and this year’s numbers have kept climbing under Governor DeSantis.

Florida law gives the governor broad authority to sign death warrants, which has let DeSantis move faster than most other states even attempt.

Supporters see this as the justice system finally following through on sentences juries handed down decades ago. Critics frame the pace itself as the story, but the underlying convictions, including Beasley’s, have withstood every layer of judicial review.

For the family of Carolyn Monfort, Tuesday’s execution closes a case that has stretched across three decades of appeals. The conviction was never overturned. The sentence was never reduced. What remains is the final step in a process the courts have now cleared at every level.