STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of killing a husband and spouse at a distant farm because the couple’s toddler regarded on was put to loss of life Thursday within the state’s first execution of the 12 months.
James Dennis Ford, 64, was pronounced lifeless at 6:19 p.m. following a deadly injection at Florida State Jail, state officers stated.
Ford was convicted in a jury trial of the murders of Gregory Malnory, 25, and his spouse Kimberly, 26. The 2 had been killed throughout a fishing journey in 1997 at a sod farm in southwest Charlotte County the place courtroom data confirmed the 2 males had been coworkers.
The couple’s 22-month-old daughter witnessed the killings whereas strapped in a seat within the household’s open pickup truck. She survived an 18-hour ordeal earlier than employees came across the scene and located the lady lined in her mom’s blood and affected by quite a few insect bites, in accordance with investigators.
The daughter, Maranda Malnory, not too long ago informed Fort Myers tv station WBBH that she had no recollection of what had occurred and solely remembers her dad and mom by way of pictures and the reminiscences of others. “I informed certainly one of my grandmas the opposite day you grieve the individuals you knew,” she stated. “However I grieve what might have been.”
Ford’s execution was the primary in Florida in 2025. One person was put to loss of life in 2024, down from six in 2023, when Gov. Ron DeSantis was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination. In the course of the earlier three years, the governor didn’t log out on any executions. He signed Ford’s death warrant in January.
Additionally Thursday night, a person who murdered his strip membership supervisor and one other man, then later prompted an enormous lockdown of the state jail system, was scheduled to be executed in Texas.
Courtroom paperwork present Ford attacked Gregory Malnory after the group arrived to go fishing, taking pictures him within the head with a .22-caliber rifle, beating him with an axe-like blunt instrument and at last slitting his throat. Kimberly Malnory was overwhelmed, raped after which shot with the identical rifle, authorities had stated.
Ford initially informed investigators that the Malnorys had been alive when he left them to go searching, suggesting another person killed them. Prosecutors stated in a courtroom submitting that there was “overwhelming proof that Ford was chargeable for the murders and the rape.”
The rifle was discovered later in a ditch close to the place Ford’s truck had run out of gasoline and prosecutors introduced DNA proof at his trial connecting him to each slayings. The jury voted 11-1 to advocate the loss of life penalty within the killings, to which the trial choose agreed.
The U.S. Supreme Courtroom denied Ford’s last attraction Wednesday with out remark.
Ford’s legal professionals had filed quite a few appeals since his sentencing, all unsuccessful. Lately the Florida Supreme Courtroom rejected claims that his IQ of about 65 on the time of the murders put him in an intellectually disabled class with a psychological age then of about 14 — due to this fact ineligible for execution, courtroom paperwork present.
The courtroom famous that solely defendants whose chronological age was below 18 on the time of a criminal offense might be ineligible for the loss of life penalty “and since Ford was 36 on the time of the murders, it was “inconceivable for him to display that he falls inside the ages of exemption.”
It’s not clear from courtroom data why these killings occurred. A part of Ford’s protection was that he suffered from abuse as a toddler and have become an alcoholic like his father, ingesting a few case of beer a day together with liquor. He additionally suffered from untreated diabetes, generally resulting in blackouts and erratic habits.
At trial, Ford additionally was convicted of sexual battery with a firearm and baby abuse..
