
Florida man is executed for the 1997 killing of a couple whose toddler witnessed the attack
STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of killing a husband and wife at a remote farm as the couple’s toddler looked on was put to death Thursday in the state’s first execution of the year.
James Dennis Ford, 64, was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison, state officials said.
Ford was convicted in a jury trial of the murders of Gregory Malnory, 25, and his wife Kimberly, 26. The two were killed during a fishing trip in 1997 at a sod farm in southwest Charlotte County where court records showed the two men were coworkers.
The couple’s 22-month-old daughter witnessed the killings while strapped in a seat in the family’s open pickup truck. She survived an 18-hour ordeal before workers came upon the scene and found the girl covered in her mother’s blood and suffering from numerous insect bites, according to investigators.