'I Want To Apologize for All the Mistakes I Made,' Says Florida Inmate Curtis Wilkie Beasley Before Execution for Deadly Hammer Attack

Curtis Wilkie Beasley, 77, apologized briefly just before Florida carried out his death sentence by lethal injection on Tuesday, September 29, for the 1995 hammer murder of Carolyn Monfort.

“I want to apologize for all the mistakes I made,” Beasley said when a warden asked whether he wanted to make a final statement, according to a publication.

Beasley was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. at Florida State Prison outside of Starke, and he became the 16th person to be put to death in Florida so far this year.

At 6 p.m., the curtain to the death chamber went up, and Beasley was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm. A spiritual adviser sat at his feet throughout the execution.

The execution began immediately after Beasley’s apology, and he began breathing heavily as the three-drug cocktail started flowing. His breathing eventually subsided, and when the warden checked Beasley’s eyes and shouted his name, he did not respond. A medic entered the death chamber at 6:11 p.m. and declared Beasley dead shortly after.

No relatives issued public statements afterward, and it was unclear whether any of Monfort’s family members actually witnessed the execution.

In August 1995, Beasley was staying at Monfort’s home in Dundee, south of Orlando, while he painted and power washed nearby apartments owned by her son-in-law, according to court records before the execution.

After Monfort’s daughter was unable to reach her for two days, the daughter went to the home and discovered her mother’s body in a blood-splattered laundry room.

Monfort suffered multiple blunt-force trauma injuries to her head, and investigators found a bloody hammer head wrapped in a towel nearby. Authorities started looking for Beasley after a witness reported seeing him drive what turned out to be Monfort’s car. Beasley traveled to Miami and later moved to Alabama, where he was arrested while working under a false name for an electrical company.

A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder, robbery and grand theft auto, and he was sentenced to death in 1998.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Beasley’s death warrant on Wednesday, August 26. Beasley’s lawyers argued that executing a 77-year-old man with cognitive decline, memory issues, and depression would violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, but the Florida Supreme Court ruled against them. The U.S. Supreme Court also declined to intervene on the day of the execution.

Beasley’s lawyers also argued that his death sentence was invalid because the jury recommended it by a 10-2 vote rather than unanimously, according to Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, which opposed the execution.

Separately, the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops asked DeSantis to commute Beasley’s sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Beasley was the seventh inmate over the age of 70 to be executed in Florida this year and the 29th person executed nationwide. Florida is closing in on its 2025 total of 19 executions, the state’s most in a single year since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Two more Florida executions are scheduled this year. William Lee Thompson, 74, is set to be executed on Tuesday, October 13, for r---- and fatally beating a woman at a Florida motel in 1976, but DeSantis temporarily paused his execution and ordered a panel of three psychiatrists to determine whether he’s competent after a doctor found he might have dementia.

William Reaves, 77, is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, October 20, for fatally shooting a deputy outside a convenience store in 1986.