A man found guilty in the 1979 rape and murder of a six-year-old girl was executed in Florida on Thursday.
Bryan Frederick Jennings was pronounced dead at 6.20pm local time after being administered a three-drug lethal injection. Jennings was sentenced to death for the killing of Rebecca Kunash, whom he drowned in a canal, according to reports.
Jennings said “no” after being asked whether he had a final statement. Kunash’s relatives did not comment publicly following Jennings’ execution.
“The execution took place without incident. There were no complications,” Jordan Kirkland, Florida department of corrections spokesperson, said, per the Associated Press.
The Florida governor Ron DeSantis has authorized more executions in a single year than any other other governor there after the US reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Two more executions are scheduled in Florida this year. If they go forward, Florida will have seen 18 death penalty executions this year.
“There’s a saying: justice delayed is justice denied,” DeSantis said earlier this month in Jacksonville.
He added: “We’re doing it to be able to bring justice to the victims’ families and I think it’s important. I’ve had people, you know, sometimes they’ll come to the office after and you can just see after decades the weight that’s kind of been lifted … They never fully had closure on, and these are really horrific crimes that are happening, so that’s really why we’re doing it.”
Jennings’ execution was among three scheduled in the US just this week.
Earlier on Thursday, Oklahoma’s governor commuted Tremane Wood’s death sentence to life imprisonment for the 2002 murder of Ronnie Wipf. Wood was found guilty of felony murder for fatally stabbing Wipf, a 19-year-old migrant farm worker, during a failed robbery, according to reports.
Although Wood’s lawyers do not deny that he was present for the robbery, they insist that his brother, Zjaiton “Jake” Wood, committed the stabbing. Zjaiton Wood reportedly killed himself in prison six years ago following his admission in court that he killed Wipf.
The third death penalty scheduled this week is set for Friday. Stephen Bryant faces execution by firing squad in South Carolina for killing three people.
