FL Killer Executed For Double Murder Toddler Witnessed

Updated at 7:15 p.m.

RAIFORD, FL — The man convicted of brutally killing a married couple in front of their 22-month-old toddler while fishing with them in Charlotte County nearly 28 years ago was the first person executed in Florida this year.

The Florida Department of Corrections said James Dennis Ford, 64, was executed Thursday at the Florida State Prison in Raiford. Hewas pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. following a lethal injection at, state officials said.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Ford’s final appeal Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.

The killing of Gregory and Kimberly Malnory took place on April 6, 1997, at the South Florida Sod Farm, according to the state's response to Ford's 2005 appeal. Ford worked with Gregory Malnory, 25, at the 7,000-acre farm in Charlotte County.

State prosecutors said Ford shot his co-worker in the head from behind with a .22-caliber rifle somewhere between the Malnorys' truck and a nearby pond. They further alleged Ford may have hit Kimberly Malnory, 26, before realizing her husband was not yet dead.

Ford then "followed him out into the middle of the field, where he bludgeoned him and slit his throat," prosecutors said.

Simultaneously, Kimberly Malnory attempted to save her young daughter, Maranda Malnory, who had been strapped into a car seat, prosecutors said. They added this led to blood marks on the baby girl's clothes and her shoe.

Prosecutors accused Ford of then shooting Kimberly Malnory in the mouth with the same rifle used on her husband before slicing the crotch area of her one-piece bathing suit with a sharp knife and raping her.

Maranda Malnory was left inside the car with the doors open for 18 hours, spending the night and much of the next day in the car seat, prosecutors said. She suffered mosquito bites on most of her body.

Greg Malnory was found dead on his back in the middle of the field with at least seven blunt force injuries to the head and face from an axe, prosecutors said. His throat was cut almost from ear to ear, they said.

Kimberly Malnory was found dead near the couple's truck with nine blunt force injuries to her head and her skull penetrated, prosecutors said. Defensive wounds on the back of her arms showed she fought back, prosecutors said.

Thumbprints on the inside of her thighs were made while she was alive, prosecutors said.

Maranda Malnory told WBBH in Fort Myers that she does not remember what happened to her parents. She did not learn of the details until she was 13 years old, the news outlet reported.

“I told one of my grandmas the other day you grieve the people you knew,” she said in the report. “But I grieve what could have been.”

A motive in the killings was not revealed.

“I would want to know why,” Maranda Malnory told WBBH. “Just because nobody has been able to pinpoint that. But, to be honest, I don’t really care anymore.”

Ford initially told investigators that the Malnorys were alive when he left them to go hunting, suggesting someone else killed them. Prosecutors said in a court filing that there was “overwhelming proof that Ford was responsible for the murders and the rape.”

The rifle was found later in a ditch near where Ford's truck had run out of gas and prosecutors presented DNA evidence at his trial connecting him to both slayings. The jury voted 11-1 to recommend the death penalty in the killings, to which the trial judge agreed.

Prison records showed Ford was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder/premeditated or attempted, sexual battery with a weapon or force and child abuse/neglect. He was sentenced to death for the first-degree murder charges, prison records showed.

Ford will be the first prisoner to be executed since Aug. 29, 2024, when Loran K. Cole was executed by lethal injection.

One person was put to death in Florida in 2024, down from six in 2023, when Gov. Ron DeSantis was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination. During the previous three years, the governor didn’t sign off on any executions.

The Death Penalty Information Center said Florida uses a three-drug cocktail for its lethal injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.