Florida man who will be executed for the double murder of 1997 witnessed by young children

Starke – A Florida man condemned for killing a husband and a wife during a fishing trip on a remote farm, while the couple’s little boy observed to receive a lethal injection on Thursday night in the first execution of the state This year.

The execution of James Dennis Ford, 64, will take place in Florida’s state prison under a death order signed by Governor Ron Desantis in January. It is the first scheduled execution in Florida this year after an execution in the state in 2024 and six in 2023.

The United States Supreme Court denied Ford’s final appeal on Wednesday without comments.

Ford was sentenced by a jury for killing Gregory Malnory, 25, and Kimberly Malnory, 26, during a fishing excursion in 1997 in a large grass of grass in southwest Florida. Ford and Gregory Malnory were co -workers in the Charlotte County farm, as shown in the judicial records.

The 22 -month -old daughter witnessed the murders while binding in a seat in the family’s open truck. He survived a 18 -hour test before the workers discovered the crime scene. The researchers said it was found covered with blood from their mother and suffered from numerous mosquitoes and other insect bites.

Court’s documents say Ford attacked Gregory Malnory after the group came to fish, shooting him in the head with a caliber rifle. Kimberly Malnory was beaten, raped and then triggered with the same rifle, authorities say.

Initially, Ford told the researchers that the Malnoryys were alive when he let them go hunting, which suggests that someone else killed them. Prosecutors said in a presentation of the Court that there was “an overwhelming evidence that Ford was responsible for murders and rape.”

The rifle was later found in a ditch near where Ford’s truck had run out of gas and prosecutors presented DNA evidence in their trial that connected it with both murders. The jury voted 11-1 to recommend the death penalty in the murders, to which the judge of first instance agreed.

Also on Thursday, a man in Texas who murdered his Striptease club manager and another man, then caused a massive blockade of the state prison system, was scheduled to be executed in Texas.

Ford lawyers have filed numerous appeals since their sentence was imposed, no successful. More recently, the Florida Supreme Court rejected the claims that its intellectual coefficient of approximately 65 at the time of the murders placed it in a category of intellectually disabled with a mental age of approximately 14, therefore, it is not eligible for the Execution, as shown by judicial documents.

The court indicated that only the defendants whose chronological age was under 18 at the time of a crime may not be eligible for the death penalty “and because Ford was 36 years old at the time of murders, it is impossible To show that it falls within the age of exemption. “

It is not clear in the judicial records why these murders occurred. Part of Ford’s defense was that he suffered from abuse when he was a child and became an alcoholic like his father, drinking around a case of beer a day along with the liquor. He also suffered not treated diabetes, sometimes leading to blackouts and erratic behavior.

In addition to the death penalty, Ford was also convicted of sexual assault with a firearm and child abuse.

If it is carried out as scheduled, Ford execution would be the first in Florida in 2025. A person was executed in 2024, compared to six in 2023, when Desantis was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination. During the previous three years, the governor did not sign any execution.

The death penalty information center said Florida uses a three -drug cocktail for lethal injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart.

By Curt Anderson, Associated Press