TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A person convicted of raping and killing a 6-year-old woman in central Florida is scheduled to be put to dying in November underneath a dying warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who continues to set a record pace for executions.
Bryan Fredrick Jennings, 66, is scheduled to die by deadly injection Nov. 13 at Florida State Jail. Jennings could be the sixteenth particular person set for execution in Florida in 2025, with DeSantis overseeing extra executions in a single yr than every other Florida governor because the dying penalty was reinstated in 1976.
DeSantis signed the dying warrant Friday, simply days earlier than the scheduled execution Tuesday of Samuel Lee Smithers. One other convicted killer, Norman Mearle Grim Jr., is ready to die Oct. 28.
Jennings was convicted of homicide, kidnapping and sexual battery and sentenced to dying in 1986 after two earlier convictions had been overturned.
In accordance with courtroom data, Jennings climbed via the window of a Brevard County house in Could 1979 and kidnapped 6-year-old Rebecca Kunash. Investigators stated Jennings drove the woman to an space close to a Merritt Island canal and raped her. Following the assault, Jennings smashed the woman’s head on the bottom after which drowned her within the close by canal, the place police later discovered her physique.
A short while later, Jennings was arrested on a site visitors warrant, and police finally linked him to the woman’s homicide.
Attorneys for Jennings are anticipated to file appeals to the Florida Supreme Courtroom and the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.
To date 35 people have been executed within the U.S. in 2025 , with Florida main the way in which behind a flurry of dying warrants signed by DeSantis. The latest execution in Florida was the Sept. 30 deadly injection of Victory Tony Jones, convicted of killing a married couple throughout a 1990 theft in South Florida.
The earlier file for executions in a single yr in Florida was eight, most lately in 2014.
