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A man from Florida found guilty of murdering his estranged wife’s sister and parents and setting their home on fire was set to be executed on Wednesday evening, marking the record 12th execution in the region this 2025.

David Pittman, 63, was due to receive a death by injection starting at 6pm at Florida State Prison near the town of Starke. The death warrant was signed by the state’s governor, who has approved a greater number of death warrants this year than any of his predecessors.

His final appeal was denied on Tuesday by the US Supreme Court. On Wednesday, he woke up at 5:45am and later ate a final meal of beef, poultry, and baked goods, according to prison authorities. No information was provided regarding whether he had any guests as the execution time approached.

To date, an additional two executions are scheduled in the state for the upcoming autumn. Victor Tony Jones is due to be put to death on 30 September for the 1990 murders of two people during a robbery, and Samuel Lee Smithers is scheduled for execution on October 14 for the homicides of two females in the mid-1990s.

Pittman was found guilty and given to capital punishment in 1991 on multiple charges of premeditated homicide, according to legal documents. Jurors also found him guilty of intentionally setting fires and major theft.

Pittman and his wife, Marie, were going through a contentious divorce in May 1990 when the murders took place. Investigators reported that he had threatened to injure her family multiple times.

Trial testimony showed that Pittman cut a telephone cable at the Florida-based home of his in-laws, Clarence Knowles and his wife, a woman in her fifties. Pittman stabbed the pair to death as well as their other daughter, 21-year-old Bonnie Knowles. Pittman then set their home on fire and stole Bonnie Knowles’s car, which he also burned. The family were discovered deceased on May 15 of that year.

A bystander during his 1991 trial identified Pittman as the individual running away from the burning car. A jailhouse informant also testified that the convict had admitted to the killings. Jurors recommended the death penalty on a nine to three vote.

His latest appeals centered on recent evidence indicating he suffers from cognitive impairments, including an IQ in the low 70s, that was apparent at the moment of the crimes. His attorneys contended that his execution would breach the legal protection against executing a individual with significant cognitive issues.

Attorneys for the state objected, contending that it was currently too late for Pittman to assert intellectual disability from the past. The Florida Supreme Court, overturning a previous decision, determined in 2020 that such arguments cannot apply to past cases.

“Pittman’s underlying intellectual disability claim is meritless. He was not intellectually disabled when he killed the three victims in 1990 or when he stood trial in 1991,” state attorneys told the US Supreme Court.

Before Pittman, 30 people have been executed in the United States in 2025, with Florida at the forefront due to the flurry of death warrants signed by the governor. The last lethal injection in the state was the 28 August death of fifty-nine-year-old a convict, found guilty of the 1992 murders of his girlfriend, her mother, and an additional male.

State lethal injections are carried out via a three-drug cocktail: a calming agent, a paralytic, and a chemical that halts the heartbeat, according to the state department of corrections.