USA - Florida. Curtis Beasley, 77, White, was executed on September 29

September 29, 2026 - USA. Florida

Curtis Beasley, 77, White, was executed on September 29

Curtis Wilkie Beasley was pronounced dead at 6.12pm following a lethal injection at the Florida state prison near Starke

He was sentenced to death in 1998 for the August 1995 murder and robbery of 62-year-old Carolyn Monfort, a mother of three he had been living with at the time. Beasley has always maintained his innocence.

The death chamber curtain opened at 6 p.m. with Beasley already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm. A spiritual adviser sat at his feet, remaining there throughout the execution.

When a warden asked whether he wished to make a final statement, Beasley said, “I want to apologize for all the mistakes I made.”

The execution began immediately afterward. Beasley breathed heavily as the drugs began flowing. His labored breathing eventually subsided, and the warden checked Beasley’s eyes and shouted his name, but he did not respond.

A medic entered the chamber at 6:11 p.m. and declared Beasley dead soon afterward.

No relatives issued any public statements afterward and it was not apparent whether any of the victim’s family had witnessed the execution.

Beasley was among a growing number of elderly death row inmates whose physical and mental ailments have raised questions about the logic and ethics of executing people who either no longer understand what they did or are so ill that natural causes are soon to kill them.

The Florida supreme court recently rejected arguments that executing elder men who suffer from cognitive decline would amount to cruel and unusual punishment, and the US supreme court declined to intervene on Tuesday. Beasley is Florida’s seventh prisoner over age 70 to be executed this year.

Beasley also was the 29th person, all men, who have been executed around the US this year. On Wednesday, Tennessee plans to execute a woman for the first time in 200 years by giving a lethal injection to Christa Pike, 50, for killing a classmate in a jealous rage when both were teens.

All Florida executions are carried out via injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state’s department of corrections.

Beasley became the 16th inmate executed in Florida this year, 140th in total since 1979, when the state resumed imposing the death penalty, the 29th person to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1,683nd overall since the nation resumed executions in 1977.

Of the 29 executions carried out by six states so far this year, Florida's account for 16. That's 55%. Of the Florida inmates put to death so far, 10 were over the age of 64, including Beasley. That's 63%.