David Joseph Pittman was executed 25 years ago by fatal injection for the stinging death of his ex-wife’s mother, father and 20-year-old sister in Mulberry, Florida
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Florida executed death row inmate David Joseph Pittman for the triple murder of his ex-wife’s family in 1990, marking a record 12 executions in the state this year.
Pittman, 63, was executed by a fatal injection on Wednesday, September 17th for the murder of his former parents, Clarence and Barbara Knowles, and his 20-year-old daughter, Bonnie Knowles. The three were stabbed in the middle of the night, and the house set fire to the fire on May 15, 1990.
Pittman was declared dead at 6:12pm.
According to the Associated Press, Pittman said in his final words. “I’m innocent. I didn’t kill anyone. That’s all.”
Pittman’s execution is the 12th time this year in Florida, a state’s one-year record, with at least two runs on the calendar. It was also the 31st execution nationwide, with a height of 10 years driven primarily by the height of the sun’s state.
Here are what you need to know about crime, what Pittman’s lawyers have argued, and the high numbers this year.
Why was David Joss Pittman convicted of?
In the darkness of the night of May 15th, 1990, Pittman went to the Mulberry Clarence and Barbara Knowles homes, about 40 miles east of Tampa.
Angry about his wife’s divorce application, prosecutors said at trial that Pittman first confronted his 20-year-old sister Bonnie, stabbing him seven times, cutting his throat, fatally stabbing his 50-year-old mother and 60-year-old father, to light the fire.
Aside from his ex, Pittman “sweeped out the whole family,” prosecutor Hardy Picard told the ju judge at a 1991 trial, according to an archived story from the Tampa Tribune.
“If anyone deserves death penalty, it’s David Pittman,” said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, a major in the Patrol Division of the agency that responded to crime scenes in 1990.
Speaking to Lakeland Ledger, part of the USA Today Network, Judd said this week that the crime was shocking to the community and described Pittmas as “physical evil.”
After witnessing the execution, Judd told reporters at a later press conference that Pittman was “bad at the time” and “it never changed.”
According to the Tampa Tribune, Pittman rose to his own defense during the trial.
Pittman was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
What was David Joseph Pittman’s recent appeal?
Pittman’s appeals lawyers recently argued that he is intellectually disabled and has been executed to be executed under the US Constitution.
In a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court, they said Pittman had about 70 IQs, attended classes for mentally ill people as children, had brain damage, and he repeatedly denied the opportunity to present evidence of disability in court.
“Florida is at the pressing risk of carrying out people with intellectual disabilities, contrary to the machinations of the eighth amendment,” wrote Pittman’s lawyer.
The Florida Attorney General’s Office argued that Pittman’s claims had no merit.
“The records show that Pittman systematically planned the murder,” the state wrote in a Supreme Court filing. “He cut off the phone line before entering the house in the middle of the night, stabbing and killing all three victims before setting fire to the settlement… In short, the claim that Pittman is intellectually disabled would run head-on to strong evidence of adaptive function.”
Pittman’s lawyer lost the argument Tuesday in a US Supreme Court denial.
When will the next run be?
By the end of the year, 11 more executions were scheduled in eight states, with the US dead at least 42 inmates, not seen since 2012.
The next two executions in the US are scheduled for the same day next week.
On Thursday, September 25th, Alabama is scheduled to run Jeffrey West in a relatively new nitrogen gas way for his mother’s murder in 1997, during a robbery at the gas station where she worked.
Within the same time from West’s execution, Texas is scheduled to run Brain Mirrorm by fatal injection for the death of his girlfriend’s 13-month-old baby in 2008. Milam was interviewed by Accalimed German filmmaker Werner Herzog for the 2013 series called “On Death Row.”
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers the executions of USA Today. Follow her on x at @amandaleusat.
