Curtis Windom is pictured.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis talks to a small audience during a press conference in Bradenton, Fla. on Thursday, July 24, 2025.

Family members whose loved ones were killed by a Florida death row inmate say they forgave him long ago and that his execution isn't about justice.

Curtis Windom, 59, was executed by lethal injection on Thursday, Aug. 28, for the 1992 triple murder of his friend, his girlfriend and his girlfriend's mother in a shooting rampage in Winter Garden, part of metro Orlando. Windom was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. ET.

Windom's execution is the 11th so far this year in Florida, which is putting more inmates to death than any other state. It's also the 30th execution in the U.S. this year so far, a 10-year high largely being driven by the Sunshine State amid a nationwide expansion of execution methods.

Many of the family members of the three people Windom killed were vehemently opposed to the execution. The victim family members, some of whom are also related to Windom, expressed outrage that Florida dismissed their request to spare his life because they had forgiven him, loved him and didn't want to see him die.

The execution was "a dog-and-pony show," the family members wrote in a statement distributed by Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

"Thirty days ago, the State of Florida began contacting our family excitedly asking if we would like to witness Curtis’ execution,"the family members said. "When we said no, and that we had, in fact, spent many years advocating against the very thing we were now being asked to come and watch, we were told that there was nothing we could do to stop it from going forward."

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty added: "Tonight’s execution wasn’t about justice. It was about flexing political muscle."

A spokeswoman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, who signs the death warrants for Florida's death row inmates, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY after business hours on Thurdsay.

The governor posted on X last week, in reference to a June execution: “It’s a great relief to victims’ families when accountability is finally administered.”

What was Curtis Windom convicted of?

On Feb. 7, 1992, Windom apparently snapped. A significant cocaine dealer in Winter Gardens, he became enraged over money owed to him and paranoid about police informants, according to archived news reports.

Windom bought bullets for a .38-calibur pistol at a Walmart and then gunned down his friend, 23-year-old Johnny Lee, in broad daylight in front of multiple witnesses, according to court records.

Then he ran nearby to the house of his girlfriend, 27-year-old Valerie Davis, and fatally shot her while she was on the phone. Shortly after that, he shot another man, Kenny Williams, after accusing him of being an informant. And shortly after that, Windom spotted Davis' mother, 41-year-old Mary Lubin, in her car at a stop sign and fatally shot her. Williams survived.

Police soon after swarmed the neighborhood, launched a manhunt and evacuated a local school before tracking Windom down in a local house and arresting him.

During a court hearing following his arrest, Windom and his mother, Lena Windom, both wept as they watched a video of a recorded conversation they had in jail shortly after the killings, according to an archived news report in the Orlando Sentinel.

The mother told her son in the video, according to the Sentinel: "I love you, child. No matter what you done."

Why some victim family members opposed execution

Curtisia Windom, who was a baby when her father killed her mother and grandmother, has been speaking out against her father's execution, saying that she forgave him long ago.

“We’ve all been traumatized,” she told the Orlando Sentinel. “It hurt a lot. Life was not easy growing up. But if we could forgive him, I don’t see why people on the street who haven’t been through our pain have a right to say he should die.”

Channing Ellison, another daughter of Davis who is not related to Windom, and Johnnie Lee's son Jeremy also opposed the execution, according to court records and the clemency video.

A letter released after the execution attributed to "the relatives and friends of Mary Lubin, Valerie Davis, and Johnny Lee," said that not only have they forgive Windom for the murders, but they loved him.

"We have celebrated graduations and weddings over the phone," they said. "We have brought his grandchildren to visit him at Florida State Prison. We have built connections despite the visitation glass and cell bars."

They said they have lived their lives "wearing a label that the state of Florida decided should define and divide us," whether that be "the surviving victims of a violent crime, the relatives of a person facing execution, or both."

"We will continue to reject the labels that we were given," they said. "We are heartbroken that the State of Florida didn’t listen to our pleas."

Kemene Hunter, Davis' sister, indicated her support of the execution during a news conference afterward, the Associated Press reported.

“All I want to say is, it took 33 years to get some closure,” Hunter said. “Vengeance is mine, says the lord.”

Curtis Windom's arguments against his execution

Windom's current attorneys argued that he had a disastrous trial lawyer, who had seven drunk driving arrests and served a five-year prison term for a DUI crash that seriously injured a woman, according to archived news reports.

"The trial record indicates counsel was out of his league," Windom's current attorneys argued to the Florida Supreme Court. "He did not have the slightest notion how to handle complicated mental health investigation and presentation at either the trial or the penalty phase stages of a capital trial. Today standards have evolved and the rules in place now would have prevented this injustice."

They had also argued that opposition to the execution by victim family members should hold sway.

The court rejected their arguments, as did the U.S. Supreme Court.

Why are executions on the rise and when is the next one?

USA TODAY has been covering every execution in the nation and tracking the current increase, which experts say is being driven by the political climate in the U.S. and a more conservative U.S. Supreme Court.

Florida has conducted 11, or 37%, of the executions in the U.S. so far this year, by far the most of any state. Before this year, the most inmates Florida had executed in a single year was eight, both in 1984 and 2014.

DeSantis has received praise and criticism for the record number. In May, he said that he signs death warrants for death row inmates to help bring closure to families who've been waiting sometimes decades for their loved one's killer to be executed.

"There are so some crimes that are just so horrific, the only appropriate punishment is the death penalty," he said.

The next execution in the U.S. is going to be by firing squad in Utah just after midnight on Sept. 5. That's when the state is planning to put Ralph Menzies to death for the murder of 25-year-old Maurine Hunsaker, a married mother of three who was found tied to a tree with her throat slit nearly 40 years ago.

Utah hasn't used a firing squad since 2010, though South Carolina began using the method for the first time this year and has executed two inmates that way. If Menzies' execution moves forward, it will be just the sixth execution by firing squad in the U.S. since 1977.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Family members of victims killed by triple murderer are angry over his execution

Reporting by Amanda Lee Myers, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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