Former Marine who killed 6-year-old girl more than 4 decades ago set for execution in Florida
STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A former Marine convicted of a crime Killed 6 year old girl More than four decades ago, he was scheduled to be executed in Florida on Thursday; This would be the record 16th death penalty imposed under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Barring a last-minute postponement, Bryan Frederick Jennings, 66, is set to die by lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke on Thursday at 6 p.m. Jennings was twice convicted and sentenced to death for murder in Brevard County in 1979; both were overturned on appeal. The last trial in 1986 resulted in the third death sentence.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his latest appeal on Wednesday.
Jennings was a 20-year-old on leave from the Marine Corps on May 11, 1979, when he pulled down the curtain on 6-year-old Rebecca Kunash’s bedroom window while her parents were in another room, according to court records.
Trial testimony revealed that Jennings kidnapped the girl, took her to a canal in his car and raped her. He then “grabbed her by her legs and shook her to the ground with such force that he fractured her skull,” according to court records. The girl later drowned in the canal and her body was found the same day.
Jennings was arrested several hours later on a traffic warrant, and investigators found that he matched the description of a man seen near Kunash’s home when Rebecca disappeared. Shoe prints found in the house matched the shoes Jennings was wearing, her fingerprints were found on the girl’s windowsill, and her clothes and hair were wet.
DeSantis has ordered more executions in a 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, the executions are planned to be carried out on November 20 this year. Richard Barry Randolph and December 9 Mark Allen GeraldsThis will bring the year’s total to 18 so far.
At a recent press conference, DeSantis announced the unprecedented number of executions and said his goal is to provide justice to victimized families who have been waiting for decades for their death sentences to be carried out.
“Some of these crimes were committed in the ’80s,” DeSantis said. “Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt like I owed it to them to make this go smoothly. I honestly wouldn’t have pulled the trigger through someone who was innocent.”
Jennings filed numerous appeals in state and federal courts; Most recently, he claimed that he was left without a lawyer for months before DeSantis signed his death warrant, violating his right to counsel. His current attorneys also say Jennings has improperly been denied a pardon hearing since 1988.
Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an anti-death penalty group, has demanded the U.S. Supreme Court review the issues and what it calls a politicization of the process.
“Florida’s death penalty system is unrecognizable from the system the law promises,” said Maria DeLiberato, the group’s legal and policy director. “Bryan Jennings was left without a state court attorney for years, was denied clemency review this century, and then was selected for execution due to convenient political timing.”
In addition to his murder conviction, Jennings was also sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary.
A total of 40 people lost their lives execution by court order At least 18 more people are scheduled to be executed in the United States so far this year, throughout the rest of 2025 and next year.
In Florida, lethal injections are performed with a sedating, paralyzing and heart-stopping drug, according to the state Department of Corrections.
