TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A man convicted of raping and killing a 6-year-old girl in central Florida will be executed in November under a death warrant signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who continues to set a record pace of executions.
Bryan Fredrick Jennings, 66, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on Nov. 13 at Florida State Prison. Jennings would be the 16th person to be executed in Florida in 2025, and DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
DeSantis signed the death warrant Friday, just days before Samuel Lee Smithers’ scheduled execution Tuesday. Another convicted murderer, Norman Mearle Grim Jr., will die on October 28.
Jennings was convicted of murder, kidnapping and sexual assault and sentenced to death in 1986 after two previous convictions were overturned.
According to court records, Jennings climbed through the window of a Brevard County home in May 1979 and abducted 6-year-old Rebecca Kunash. Investigators said Jennings took the girl to an area near a Merritt Island canal and raped her. After the assault, Jennings crushed the girl’s head into the ground and then drowned her in the nearby canal, where police later found her body.
A short time later, Jennings was arrested on a traffic warrant and police eventually linked him to the girl’s murder.
Jennings’ attorneys are expected to file appeals to the Florida Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
So far, 35 people have been executed in the United States in 2025, with Florida leading the way behind an avalanche of death sentences signed by DeSantis. The most recent execution in Florida was the Sept. 30 lethal injection of Victory Tony Jones, convicted of killing a married couple during a 1990 robbery in South Florida.
The previous record for executions in one year in Florida was eight, the most recent in 2014.