STARK, FL– A former Marine has been convicted A 6-year-old girl was killed Florida’s death penalty in more than four decades is scheduled to take place Thursday, a record 16th death penalty carried out under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Barring a last-minute reprieve, Brian Frederick Jennings, 66, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Florida State Prison near Stark. Jennings was convicted and sentenced to death twice for the 1979 murder in Brevard County, both of which were overturned on appeal. The final trial in 1986 resulted in a third death sentence.
The US Supreme Court rejected his final appeal on Wednesday.
According to court records, Jennings was 20 years old on leave from the Marine Corps on May 11, 1979, when he lowered a screen onto 6-year-old Rebecca Conash’s bedroom window while her parents were in another room.
Trial testimony showed that Jennings kidnapped the girl, took her to a canal in his car and raped her. He then “swung her by her legs to the ground with such force that she fractured her skull,” court records show. The girl then drowned in the canal, where her body was found later that day.
Jennings was arrested a few hours later on a traffic warrant, with investigators finding he matched the description of a man seen near the Conash home when Rebecca disappeared. Shoe prints found in the house matched those worn by Jennings, and his fingerprints were found on the girl’s windowsill, and his clothes and hair were wet.
DeSantis has ordered more executions in a single year than any Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions. After Jennings, this year’s executions are scheduled for November 20 Richard Barry Randolph And December 9th Mark Allen Geraldsbringing the year-to-date total to 18.
At a recent press conference, DeSantis explained the unprecedented number of executions by saying his goal was to bring justice to the families of victims who had waited decades for executions.
“Some of these crimes were committed in the 1980s,” DeSantis said. “Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt like I owed it to them to make sure it went very smoothly. If I honestly through someone were innocent, I wouldn’t pull the trigger.”
Jennings has filed numerous appeals in state and federal courts, most recently claiming that he spent months without a lawyer before DeSantis signed his death warrant in violation of his right to counsel. His current attorneys also say Jennings has not improperly held a hearing since 1988.
An anti-death penalty group, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, demanded a US Supreme Court review of the cases and what it described as politicization of the process.
“Florida’s death penalty system has become different from the system the law promises,” said Maria DiLiberato, the group’s director of legal and policy affairs. “Brian Jennings was left without a state court attorney for years, denied clemency review this century, and then selected for execution because of political expediency.”
In addition to the murder conviction, Jennings was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary.
A total of 40 men died Implementation by court order So far this year in the United States, at least 18 more people are scheduled to be executed during the remainder of 2025 and next year.
Lethal injections in Florida are performed using a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state Department of Corrections.