Curtis had been sentenced to death for the 1992 triple murder of his friend, his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s mother in a shooting in Winter Garden, in the Orlando metropolitan area.

His daughter Curtisia, family members and friends of the three people killed strongly opposed the execution, expressing outrage that Florida rejected their request to spare his life because they had forgiven him, loved him and did not want to see him die. They
said they loved Windom and had celebrated graduations and weddings with him on the phone over the years. “We took his grandchildren to visit him in Florida State Prison, we built bonds despite the glass and bars of the cells, we forgave him, now how am I going to tell my son that his grandfather was put to death?”
The pleas of his daughter not to take away her father, after long years of reconciliation had freed her heart from the terrible ordeal of evil and death, fell on deaf ears.

Windom’s execution is the 11th this year in Florida. It is also the 30th execution in the United States in 2025, a number that has risen sharply over the last 10 years.

To all those who loved him, to those who became friends with him during his long years of isolation on death row, to those who correspond with condemned prisoners and support these people in the last years of their lives, to the more than 10,000 people who signed the petition to save Curtis, we say that we will not stop loving life. We will continue turning to the God of life—as Don Marco Gnavi said in his homily on the eve of the execution during the evening prayer of the Community of Sant’Egidio in Santa Maria in Trastevere—hoping that those on death row will be liberated in the name of Jesus, who came to inaugurate the time of grace.

Homily-of-don-Marco-Gnavi-on the-eve-of-the execution

In the Jubilee of Hope, we continue to reach out our hands to those condemned to death and to hope for a future of justice.