(This story was revised to add more detail, images and video.)
David Joseph Pittman, who killed his estranged wife’s parents and sister in Mulberry in 1990, died by lethal injection at 6 pm. Sept. 17 at Florida State Prison near Starke.
His execution was a record 12th execution this year in the state.
Pittman, 63, was sentenced to death about a year after he was convicted in April 1991 of three counts of first-degree murder.
In 1990, he was charged in the stabbing deaths of Clarence and Barbara Knowles and their daughter, Bonnie, whose throat was also slit. He then set their house on fire and stole the daughter’s car, leaving it in a ditch before setting the car on fire.
He had purchased gasoline to start the fire and cut the telephone wires to the home, at a time before there were cell phones, to prevent the victims from calling for help, according to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, who was one of the first responders while serving as a patrol division major.
Court records show his wife had served him divorce papers while he was still incarcerated in state prison for an unrelated charge and he was angry at Bonnie Knowles for reporting in 1989 that he had raped her. But the case was dropped by the state because she had waited too long to file the allegations.
Pittman was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m., according to the Department of Corrections.
Pittman’s last words were, ”I know you all came to watch an innocent man be murdered by the State of Florida. I am innocent. I didn’t kill anybody. That’s it,” a WFLA TV news report said.
After the execution, a nephew of the victims, James Geddes, said, “This is a bittersweet day for the family of Clarence, Barbara and Bonnie Knowles.”
He called the murders heinous and brutal and the victims “good people.”
“Today has brought a measure of closure to this tragic event 35 years ago, Justice has been served,” Geddes said.
Judd attended the execution and held a news conference shortly after.
“This man is evil in the flesh, but he’s evil no more,” Judd said. “As a Christian, I prayed for his soul, but I was satisfied by his execution for the horribleness of his crimes.
“I am angry. I am angry that it took 35 years for justice to occur,” he said.
Holding up a 1990 mugshot of Pittman, Judd said, “He was evil then. He was evil to the end. His last public statement was a bold-faced lie. He never changed.”
Once the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution for Pittman on Sept. 16, the execution could only be stopped by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Pittman’s attorneys had appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution so a hearing could be held concerning a claim of intellectual disability, which under state law would disqualify a defendant for capital punishment.
But his lawyers were unsuccessful because the request was not timely.
The Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, issued a statement following his execution.
“Tonight, We the People of the State of Florida killed David Pittman, an intellectually disabled man,” the emailed statement said. “We killed a man who was broken and beaten as a child. A child his own mother described as one that no mother would want.
“She mercilessly beat him and told him and his siblings they were welcome to call child protective services and that, while she might go to jail for a day or two, ‘when they let me out, you’re going to the hospital.’
“Violence, neglect, and hardship shaped David’s childhood long before the State ever called him a defendant,” the FADP statement said.
DeSantis has signed more death warrants than any other governor in Florida history.
Two more executions have been scheduled for this fall. Victor Tony Jones is scheduled to die on Sept. 30 for the 1990 killings of two people during a robbery and Samuel Lee Smithers is scheduled for execution on Oct. 14 for the murders of two women in 1996.
“There is zero evidence to show that this unprecedented pace of executions is keeping the people of the State of Florida any safer,” the FADP statement read. “Instead, we are tearing apart families and killing broken and traumatized people who should be legally exempt from execution. There is no doubt that history will reveal that this killing spree is indeed the darkest time in the Sunshine State.
The FADP is a group working to end the death penalty in Florida. Its members include individual Floridians, murder victims’ family members and other survivors of violent crime, law enforcement professionals, families of the incarcerated and death row exonerees.
The WFLA report also said that during a visit to Tampa on Sept. 17, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier explained why the state is moving forward with executions.
“We recommend these cases where there is no legal impediment, where a court of competent jurisdiction has ultimately determined the death penalty is the appropriate sentence. We in law enforcement, we enforce the rule of law,” Uthmeier said.
Last year, another Polk County death row inmate, Nelson Serrano, 85, died of natural causes. The Department of Correction’s website shows 12 death row inmates remain from Polk County.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Florida executes David Pittman for 1990 murders of three family members in Mulberry
Reporting by Paul Nutcher, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
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