Foto: Florida Department of Law Enforcement
A former Marine who was convicted of killing a 6-year-old girl in 1986 is set to be executed in Florida on Thursday (November 13), ABC News reports.
Bryan Frederick Jennings, 66, is scheduled for lethal injection at 6:00 p.m. local time in Florida State Prison near Starke barring any last-minute reprieve. Jennings was sentenced to death in relation to the 1979 abduction, rape and murder of Rebecca Kunash three times, with his final trial coming in 1986 after the first two sentences were reversed on appeal.
Jennings attempted to once again appeal his third death sentence, which was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday (November 12). The then-20-year-old was on leave from the Marine Corps on May 11, 1979, when he took down a screen at Kunash's bedroom window and abducted her, drove her to a canal and raped her, at which point he “swung her by her legs to the ground with such force that she fractured her skull,” according to trial testimony via ABC News.
Kunash was drowned in the canal and her body was found the following day, at which point Jennings was arrested a few hours later on a traffic warrant, having matched the description of the man seen near the victim's home at the time of her disappearance.
Thursday's execution will be the 16th carried out under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, the most by a Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Florida is set to have two more executions -- Richard Barry Randolph on November 20 and Mark Allen Geralds on December 9 -- which would total 18 in 2025.