Curtisia Windom grew up knowing two truths: Her mother had died, and her father was in prison.
The 33-year-old was raised by relatives from both sides of her family since she was an infant, and would go to visit her dad all the time.
"They just said, 'Oh, he went to jail for doing something bad,' and my mom went to heaven to be with God," she recalled to host Tom Hudson on "The Florida Roundup."
But then came the day her world was shaken.
She was a preteen — around 11 to 13 years old — playing with her cousins. Then one of them said, "Well, that's why your dad killed your mom," Windom recalled.
The Curtis Windom case
Windom said it had never clicked with her on why her dad — Curtis Windom — was in prison. She grew up having a relationship with him. She described him as a nice guy who was sweet and thoughtful — A father who never missed a holiday or birthday. She'd always get a card from him.
So, knowing why she had gone through certain hardships due to not having her parents, she got frustrated with this new knowledge.
"I grew hatred towards him at the time, and I asked him why. I remember the first time I asked him why. He said that he always knew one day he would have to answer that question. But today, at this time, he's not going to answer it because my emotions were too high. He was like, 'I am ready to talk whenever you're really ready and whenever you really want to know, I'll be here and I'll be ready to talk, but today just isn't the time.'"
For years, she did not ask again.
That is, until she found out in July that her father would become the 30th person in the country this year to die by lethal injection, according to the Associated Press. When he died in August, he marked Florida's 11th execution.
"Once his death warrant was signed, and I was going to visit him every week. I did let him know, 'Hey, I don't want you to die, and I know you'll be dying soon. I do want to know why,' and I didn't want him to take it to his grave," she said.
ALSO READ: Florida to put inmate to death for 1992 triple murder in record 11th execution this year
According to AP, Curtis Windom was convicted of killing his girlfriend, her mother, and a man he claimed owed him $2,000 in 1992 in Orange County. Those were: Johnnie Lee, Valerie Davis and Mary Lubin.
Davis was Curtisia's mother, and the murders happened when Curtisia was not even a year old.
The AP reports that court records show a friend told Curtis Windom that day that Lee, who supposedly owed Windom the $2,000, had won $114 at a greyhound track. Curtis told the friend that “you're gonna read about me” and that he planned to kill Lee.
He then went to a Walmart to buy a .38-caliber revolver and a box of 50 shells, according to court testimony. Not long after that, Curtis drove to find Lee, located him, and shot him twice in the back from his car, followed by two more shots standing over the victim at close range.
Then Windom ran to Davis' apartment and fatally shot his girlfriend “with no provocation” in front of a friend who witnessed the murder, court records show. Windom randomly shot and wounded another man before encountering Davis' mother, Mary Lubin, as she drove to her daughter's apartment. Lubin was shot twice in her car at a stop sign.
Curtisia Windom shared the conversation she had with her father about it, and that the way this was portrayed in the news was "completely wrong."
"He did tell me that he never wanted to kill my mom — he never wanted to kill anyone," Windom said. "It wasn't about money."
She recalled that he explained that that morning, he was with her mother. They just bought a home, and her mom was going to shop for furniture.
"He said he then went home, not knowing that my mom was still there. In his mind, no one was supposed to be in our house, and when she walked out, he shot her — not knowing that was even her and his mind was not there," Windom said. "He said by this time, he just was not in his right head."
Windom said hearing his perspective brought her some more clarity.
"It did clear up a lot of the misinformation I had already heard, and it didn't justify it — didn't make me feel better because I'm still losing my mom. It didn't bring me gratitude, but I could understand the situation."
Record executions in Florida
Windom said her father told her everything the last few weeks she visited him before his execution, and that the death warrant forced them to have the hard conversations. Her father's lawyers filed multiple appeals to try to halt the lethal injection.
But his story is part of a larger narrative — Florida is setting records when it comes to the death penalty. Currently, there have been 16 death row inmates executed so far this year, including six veterans.
ALSO READ: Gov. Ron DeSantis says executions are about justice amid modern-era record
Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed more death warrants this year than in any other year since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976. He and other supporters believe it's a form of justice. He said in May that he supports capital punishment because he thinks there are crimes so horrific that the only appropriate punishment is the death penalty.
"This stuff is just overwhelmingly sadistic. It shocks your conscience," DeSantis said. "Part of it is it expresses the outrage of the community because if you do something less than that, then potentially you're sending a signal that, 'Yeah, it's bad but not as bad as it could have been — no. These are the worst of the worst."
Maria DeLiberato is the legal and policy director for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and said that this number of executions is the "most aggressive in Florida's modern history."
She feels like this is a way to score political points.
"For such a serious and solemn duty, it's being just completely run roughshod like in this sort of cavalier manner," DeLiberato said.
Earlier this month, the governor rejected that politics was behind his execution orders.
"We're doing it to be able to bring justice to the victims' families, and I think it's important. I've had people, sometimes they'll come to the office after and you can just see after decades, the weight that's kind of been lifted," DeSantis said.
But for Curtisia Windom, justice wasn't served.
She explained how she has siblings on both sides and that no one wanted his death to happen aside from her mom's sister, who said it was justice for her.
"He was already in prison for 33 years. What satisfaction do you get out of killing a man 33 years later? I don't see the justice in it," Windom said.
She feels like his time on death row was justified and that he suffered enough.
"If they're going to take a life for another life, you do it around the time they did their action, the man sat in prison for 33 years, and a lot of my mother's family and even the family of Johnnie Lee said this was reopening old wounds — wounds that had finally healed — it reopened old wounds and poured salt in them," Windom said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story was compiled by interviews conducted by Tom Hudson for "The Florida Roundup."
