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 Thursday in Florida.
Bryan Frederick Jennings was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m. local time after receiving a lethal injection of three drugs. Jennings was sentenced to death for the murder of Rebecca Kunash, whom he reportedly drowned in a canal.
Jennings answered “no” after being asked if he had a final statement. Kunash’s relatives made no public comments after Jennings’ execution.
“The execution was uneventful. There were no complications,” said Jordan Kirkland, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Corrections, according to the Associated Press.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis authorized more executions in a single year than any other Florida governor after the United States reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Two more executions are planned in Florida this year. If they move forward, Florida will have seen 18 capital 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 so we can bring justice to the families of the victims and I think that’s important. I’ve had people, you know, sometimes they come into the office afterwards and you can see after decades the weight that has sort of been lifted… They’ve never completely moved on and these are really horrific crimes that are happening, that’s really why we do it.”
Jennings’ execution was one of three planned this week in the United States.
Earlier Thursday, Oklahoma’s governor commuted Tremane Wood’s death sentence to life imprisonment for the 2002 murder of Ronnie Wipf. Wood was convicted of murder for fatally stabbing Wipf, a 19-year-old migrant farmworker, during a botched robbery, according to reports.
Although Wood’s lawyers do not deny that he was present during the robbery, they insist that his brother, Zjaiton “Jake” Wood, committed the stabbing. Zjaiton Wood allegedly committed suicide in prison six years ago after admitting in court to killing Wipf.
The third death sentence scheduled for this week is set for Friday. Stephen Bryant faces execution by firing squad in South Carolina for killing three people.
