Former Marine Bryan Jennings to be executed in Florida for murder of 6-year-old girl
A former Marine convicted of murdering a young girl is scheduled to be executed Thursday in Florida.
Bryan Frederick Jennings, 66, will die by lethal injection at 6p.m., barring a last-minute reprieve.
If the execution goes ahead, it will be the record 16th death sentence carried out under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Jennings is an inmate at Florida State Prison, near Starke.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal Wednesday.
According to court records, Jennings, then 20, abducted 6-year-old Rebecca Kunash from her home on May 11, 1979.
He was on leave from the Marine Corps at the time, and took down a screen at her bedroom window while her parents were in another room.
Jennings took Rebecca to a canal and raped her, then “swung her by her legs to the ground with such force that she fractured her skull,” court records show.
Rebecca was then drowned in the canal, where her body was found later that day.
Jennings was arrested a few hours later on a traffic warrant, and investigators found he matched the description of a man seen near the Kunash home when Rebecca disappeared.
Shoe prints found at the home matched those Jennings was wearing, his fingerprints were found on the girl’s windowsill, and his clothes and hair were wet.
DeSantis has ordered more executions in a single 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, executions this year are scheduled November 20 for Richard Barry Randolph and December 9 for Mark Allen Geralds, which would bring the year’s total so far to 18.
At a recent news conference, DeSantis explained the unprecedented number of executions by saying his goal is to bring justice to victim families who have waited decades for the death sentences to be carried out.
“Some of these crimes were committed in the ’80s,” DeSantis said.
“Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt I owed it to them to make sure this ran very smoothly. If I honestly thought someone was innocent, I would not pull the trigger.”
Jennings has filed numerous appeals in state and federal courts, most recently contending that he went months without a lawyer prior to DeSantis signing his death warrant in violation of his right to counsel. His current attorneys also say Jennings has improperly not had a clemency hearing since 1988.
An anti-capital punishment group, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, sought U.S. Supreme Court review of the issues and what it called the politicization of the process.
“Florida’s death penalty system has become unrecognizable from the one the law promises,” said Maria DeLiberato, legal and policy director for the group.
“Bryan Jennings was left without a state court lawyer for years, denied a clemency review in this century, and then selected for execution because of favorable political timing.”
In addition to the murder conviction, Jennings was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary.
A total of 40 men have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and at least 18 other people are scheduled to be put to death during the remainder of 2025 and next year.
Florida’s lethal injections are carried out with a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state Department of Corrections.
