Florida man executed for killing couple in front of their toddler in 1997
James Dennis Ford, who was convicted of the murders of Gregory and Kimberly Malnory, was put to death by lethal injection
A Florida man convicted of killing a husband and wife at a remote farm as the couple’s toddler looked on was put to death Thursday in the state’s first execution of the year.
James Dennis Ford, 64, was pronounced dead at 6.19pm following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison, state officials said.
Ford was convicted in a jury trial of the murders of Gregory Malnory, 25, and his wife Kimberly, 26. The two were killed during a fishing trip in 1997 at a sod farm in southwest Charlotte County where court records showed the two men were coworkers.
The couple’s 22-month-old daughter witnessed the killings while strapped in a seat in the family’s open pickup truck. She survived an 18-hour ordeal before workers came upon the scene and found the girl covered in her mother’s blood and suffering from numerous insect bites, according to investigators.
The daughter, Maranda Malnory, recently told Fort Myers television station WBBH that she had no recollection of what had happened and only remembers her parents through photos and the memories of others.
“I told one of my grandmas the other day you grieve the people you knew,” she said. “But I grieve what could have been.”
