The state of Florida has executed James Dennis Ford, 64, for the 1997 murders of Gregory and Kimberly Malnory, who were brutally slain on a fishing trip in front of their young daughter, the first of two executions that occurred on Thursday.
Ford was pronounced dead at 6:19pm ET, after being given lethal injection drugs at the Florida State Prison in Raiford.
Maranda Malnory was 23 months old when, according to prosecutors, Ford shot Gregory Malnory in the head with a .22-caliber rifle, bludgeoned him, and slit his throat, then raped, beat, and shot Kimberly Malnory.
The couple’s daughter, Maranda Malnory, was left behind as Ford fled the scene, and found nearly a day later dehydrated and covered in insect bites by an employee of a nearby sod farm.
Malnory, now an adult, said she has little recollection of the killings, but grieves her parents nonetheless.
“I told one of my grandmas the other day you grieve the people you knew,” she told Gulf Coast News Now ahead of the execution. “But I grieve what could have been.”
Malnory was 13 when she learned the full truth of what happened to her parents.
“I would want to know why,” she added in her interview with Gulf Coast News Now. “Just because nobody has been able to pinpoint that. But, to be honest, I don’t really care anymore.”
Both the U.S. Supreme Court and Florida Supreme Court rejected recent appeals from Ford ahead of the execution.
His lawyers had argued that while Ford was 36 at the time of the murders, he had a mental age of 14, and diabetes-related symptoms that caused him to black out and act erratically.
State officials said that on his last day, Ford woke up at 3:30am, received three family visitors, and later consumed a final meal of steak, macaroni and cheese, fried okra, sweet potato, pumpkin pie, and sweet tea.
He reportedly did not offer any final public statements.
Ford was the first execution in the state this year, and the fourth nationwide.
Later Thursday, Texas executed Richard Lee Tabler, who officials say killed four people in the city of Killeen in 2004.
He was pronounced dead at 6:39pm CST, The Associated Press reports.
Tabler, who was born in California, became a teen runaway and later engaged in a life of crime that included stealing cars, running and using drugs, and serving past prison time.
In November of 2004, he killed Mohamed-Amine Rahmouni, the co-owner of a local night club where he once worked, and his friend, Haitham Frank Zayed, after the club owner allegedly threatened Tabler’s loved ones.
The killing took place when Tabler and an accomplice lured the pair to a meeting under the premise of buying stolen stereo equipment.
Two days later, Tabler allegedly killed two teen dancers at the club, Tiffany Loraine Dotson and Amanda Benefield, when they began asking questions about the murders.
Police said Tabler once called the Bell County Sheriff’s Department to brag about the killings. He was indicted but never convicted of the second two deaths, and he later denied responsibility.
In prison, Tabler experienced bouts of depression, self-harm, and later found religion and began leading a death row ministry.
He also made headlines in 2008 and 2012 for using letters and a contraband cell phone to send messages to then-state Senator John Whitmire, the current mayor of Houston, who described the missives as death threats, while Tabler has said they were attempts to communicate about poor conditions behind bars.
The incident prompted a statewide lockdown of the prison system to search for contraband.
Over the course of his imprisonment, Tabler attempted at various points to hasten and stop his execution. He was the subject of a 2008 hearing where he was ultimately deemed mentally competent, and a 2024 American Civil Liberties Union appeal that in 2008, his counsel withheld a report that diagnosed him as severely mentally ill.
Tabler wrote in a statement to USA Today ahead of his execution that he regretted the killings.
"I take full responsibility for my actions of 20 years ago, and sadly, I can't go back in time and just walk away," he wrote.
"A lot of people cannot understand how I can have such peace and joy in my heart in the face of my own death, but I know it’s the strength, grace and mercy of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has been with me every step of the way," he added. "The day of my execution is the beginning of my real life."
In addition to states with busy death rows like Texas and Florida, the Trump administration is expected to revive federal executions, which were paused during the Biden administration amid concerns over wrongful convictions and other rights issues.
He’s also pushed to supply states with lethal injection drugs, given the difficulties jurisdictions have in obtaining reliable supplies of such chemicals, which many pharmaceutical companies refuse to provide for executions.
