Former Marine who killed 6-year-old girl more than 4 decades ago set for execution in Florida

STARKE, Fla. — A former Marine convicted of killing a 6-year-old girl more than four decades ago is scheduled Thursday to be executed in Florida, which would be the record 16th death sentence carried out under Republican Gov.

STARKE, Fla. — A former Marine convicted of killing a 6-year-old girl more than four decades ago is scheduled Thursday to be executed in Florida, which would be the record 16th death sentence carried out under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Barring a last-minute reprieve, Bryan Frederick Jennings, 66, is set to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Thursday at Florida State Prison near Starke. 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.

Bryan Frederick Jennings.Florida Department of Correction / AP fileThe U.S. Supreme Court denied his final appeal Wednesday. Jennings’ execution was one of three scheduled this week.

According to court records, Jennings was a 20-year-old on leave from the Marine Corps on May 11, 1979, when he took down a screen at the bedroom window of 6-year-old Rebecca Kunash 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,” court records show. The girl was then drowned in the canal, where her body was found later that day.