FLORIDA SET TO EXECUTE CURTIS BEASLEY FOR 1995 HAMMER MURDER

Florida is scheduled to execute Curtis Wilkie Beasley, 77, on Tuesday for the 1995 killing of Carolyn Monfort, according to court records. Beasley was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery and grand theft auto and sentenced to death in 1998. The Florida Supreme Court last week rejected an appeal arguing that executing a man of his age, who is said to be suffering cognitive decline, would amount to cruel and unusual punishment. A final appeal is pending before the US Supreme Court. He is due to receive a three-drug injection at the state prison from 6pm.

According to investigators, 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 found her body in a blood-splattered laundry room after being unable to reach her for two days; investigators said Monfort had suffered multiple blunt-force injuries to the head, and a bloody hammer head was found wrapped in a towel nearby. Officials said a witness reported seeing Beasley driving Monfort's car, prompting a search that led to Miami and then Alabama, where he was arrested working under a false name for an electrical company.

Beasley's execution would be Florida's 16th of the year and would make him the seventh prisoner over 70 put to death by the state in 2026, according to the report. Florida has carried out more than half of all US executions this year, with Beasley's set to be the 29th nationally. A second execution is scheduled for Wednesday in Tennessee, where officials plan to put Christa Pike, 50, to death by lethal injection for killing a classmate in a jealous rage when they were teenagers — reportedly the state's first execution of a woman in 200 years.