Florida kills man on death row in state’s 16th execution this year | Florida
A man convicted of raping and murdering a six-year-old girl in 1979 was executed in Florida on Thursday.
Bryan Frederick Jennings was declared dead after a lethal injection consisting of three drugs was administered at 18.20 local time. Jennings was sentenced to death for killing Rebecca Kunash, whom he drowned in the canal. According to reports.
Asked if he had any final comments, Jennings said “no.” Kunash’s relatives made no public comments following Jennings’ execution.
“The execution took place without incident. There were no complications,” Florida Department of Corrections spokesman Jordan Kirkland said, according to the Associated Press.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis authorized more executions than any other governor in a year after the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Two more executions are planned for Florida this year. If they move forward, Florida will see 18 death penalty executions this year.
“There’s a saying: Justice delayed is justice denied,” DeSantis said in Jacksonville earlier this month.
He added: “We’re doing this so we can bring justice to the families of the victims, and I think that’s important. We’ve had people, you know, sometimes come into the office later, and decades later you can see the weight just kind of being lifted… They never really got closure, and these are really horrific crimes, so that’s really why we’re doing this.”
Jennings’ execution was among three planned in the United States this week.
Earlier Thursday, Oklahoma’s governor commuted Tremane Wood’s death sentence to life in prison for the 2002 murder of Ronnie Wipf. Wood was convicted of felony murder for fatally stabbing 19-year-old immigrant farm worker Wipf during a botched robbery, according to reports.
Although Wood’s lawyers do not deny that he was present at the robbery, they insist that his brother, Zjaiton “Jake” Wood, did the stabbing. Zjaiton Wood reportedly killed himself in prison after confessing to killing Wipf in court six years ago.
The third death penalty scheduled this week was set for Friday. Stephen Bryant is in danger of being executed by firing squad for killing three people in South Carolina.
