STARKE, Fla.-- A former Marine convicted of killing a 6-year-old girl more than four decades ago is scheduled Thursday to be executed in Florida, which would be the record 16th death sentence carried out under Republican Gov.
Ron DeSantis.Barring a last-minute reprieve, Bryan Frederick Jennings, 66, is set to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m.Thursday at Florida State Prison near Starke.
Jennings was convicted and sentenced to death twice for the 1979 murder in Brevard County, both of which were reversed on appeal.The final trial in 1986 resulted in a third death sentence.The U.S.
Supreme Court denied his final appeal Wednesday.According to court records, Jennings was a 20-year-old on leave from the Marine Corps on May 11, 1979, when he took down a screen at the bedroom window of 6-year-old Rebecca Kunash while her parents were in another room.Jennings abducted the girl, took her in his car to a canal and raped her, trial testimony showed.He then “swung her by her legs to the ground with such force that she fractured her skull,” court records show.
The girl was then drowned in the canal, where her body was found later that day.Jennings was arrested a few hours later on a traffic warrant, where investigators found he matched the description of a man seen near the Kunash home when Rebecca disappeared.Shoe prints found at the home matched those Jennings was wearing, his fingerprints were found on the girl's windowsill, and his clothes and hair were wet.DeSantis has ordered more executions in a single year than any Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions.After Jennings, executions this year are scheduled Nov.
20 for Richard Barry Randolph and Dec.9 for Mark Allen Geralds, which would bring the year's total so far to 18.At a recent news conference, DeSantis explained the unprecedented number of executions by saying his goal is to bring justice to victim families who have waited d...