Florida executes Bryan Frederick Jennings

STARKE, Fla. -- A man convicted of the 1979 killing of a 6-year-old girl who was abducted from her bedroom was put to death Thursday evening in Florida's 16th execution this year.

Bryan Frederick Jennings, 66, was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m. after a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. Jennings drew the death penalty for the murder of Rebecca Kunash, who was raped and drowned in a canal.

When asked if he had a final statement, Jennings loudly said, "No." As the drugs were then administered, his chest heaved and his arms twitched for a few minutes. Then he lay still with his mouth open.

The execution of the ex-Marine was one of three scheduled this week in the U.S., though Oklahoma's governor spared the life of a man just before a planned lethal injection Thursday. On Friday, inmate Stephen Bryant is set to be executed by firing squad in South Carolina for a five-day killing rampage decades ago.

Court records show Jennings was a 20-year-old Marine on leave on May 11, 1979, when he removed the screen from the girl's bedroom window while her parents were in another room.

Jennings abducted the girl, took her in his car to a canal and raped her, trial testimony showed. He then "swung her by her legs to the ground with such force that she fractured her skull," according to court records. The girl was then drowned in the canal, where her body was found later that day.

Jennings was convicted and sentenced to death twice for the 1979 murder in Brevard County, both of which were reversed on appeal. The final trial in 1986 resulted in a third death sentence. He also drew life sentences for kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary convictions.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Republican who signed the death warrant, has ordered more executions in a single year than any Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976. The state's previous high was in 2014 with eight executions.

Additional Florida executions are scheduled Nov. 20 for Richard Barry Randolph and Dec. 9 for Mark Allen Geralds, which if carried out would bring the year's total to 18 so far.

With Jennings' death, a total of 42 people have undergone court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and at least 16 others -- including Bryant -- were scheduled to be put to death in the rest of 2025 and throughout 2026, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

South Carolina's highest court recently refused to stop plans for Bryant's firing squad execution, which is scheduled for Friday evening. Bryant was convicted of killing three people more than 20 years ago while leaving taunting messages for police in the blood of one of his victims.

On Thursday, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt commuted Tremane Wood's sentence to life in prison moments before Woods was to be put to death for his role in the 2002 killing of farmworker Ronnie Wipf during an attempted robbery.

Source: The Associated Press, Staff, November 14, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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