A man convicted of a triple murder is set to be executed in Florida.
Florida is set to carry out its 12th execution of the year, with 63-year-old David Pittman scheduled to die by lethal injection on Wednesday evening at Florida State Prison.
Pittman was sentenced to death in 1991 for the brutal killing of his estranged wife’s sister, 21-year-old Bonnie Knowles, and her parents, Clarence, 60, and Barbara Knowles, 50. Prosecutors said the victims were stabbed to death in their home in 1990, after which the house was set on fire in an attempt to cover up the crime.
His lawyers argued he should be spared, citing intellectual disability and claiming his IQ is only 70. Multiple appeals for a stay of execution were denied, clearing the way for the sentence to proceed.
If carried out at 6:00 p.m. local time (2200 GMT), Pittman’s execution will be the 31st in the United States this year — the highest annual total since 2014, when 35 executions took place.
Florida has led the country in capital punishment during 2025 with 11 executions so far, followed by South Carolina and Texas with four each. In total, 25 inmates have been executed by lethal injection, while two faced firing squads and three were put to death using nitrogen hypoxia, a new method that induces suffocation through nitrogen gas. Human rights experts at the United Nations have condemned the nitrogen process as “cruel and inhumane.”
The US remains divided on capital punishment. While 23 states have abolished the death penalty, three others, California, Oregon, and Pennsylvania, currently have moratoriums halting executions.
President Donald Trump has consistently supported the practice. On his first day in office, he urged for its expansion “for the vilest crimes,” a position he continues to reinforce.
