STARKE, Fla. — Convicted murderer James Ford was put to death by lethal injection Thursday night in Florida’s first execution of the year.
The 64-year-old was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. 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.
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Governor Ron Desantis signed off on Ford’s death warrant on January 10th.
Several advocate groups had come out against the execution, as well as the death penalty altogether.
Following the execution, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty released the following statement:
“Tonight, we the people of the State of Florida, killed 64-year-old James Ford. We killed a man who had the emotional and intellectual capacity of a teenager. We killed the father of three daughters, whom he loved and who loved him back. We killed a man who was no longer a danger to anyone, who could have and should have lived out his remaining days in prison.
“When the Governor signed James’ warrant last month and the guards came to pull him from his cell to take him to death watch, James was doing his weekly bible study with his death row neighbors. With tears in his eyes as he was hauled away, he thanked one of his neighbors for teaching him so much of the Lord’s word over the years.
“The State wants you to believe that everyone on death row is a monster. That they are subhuman, or less than, or somehow “other.” It’s simply not true. We ripped a man away from his bible study and led him to his death.
“These are the people we are killing. James is more than the worst thing he has ever done. We grieve for James’ victims, and we acknowledge and grieve that his crimes left another child parentless. We grieve for his daughters, who are now also without their father. But this case could have ended 30 years ago with a life sentence, and the healing for the victims could have started then.”
Read: Patrick McDowell, man who killed Nassau deputy Joshua Moyers in 2021, sentenced to death by judge
HISTORY OF EXECUTIONS IN FLORIDA
In 2024, only one person was executed by the state.
Loran Cole was killed by lethal injection in August for the 1994 killing of an 18-year-old FSU student in the Ocala National Forest. Cole also was serving two life sentences for rape.
In 2023, Governor Desantis approved the executions of six death row inmates.
In the last 10 years, there have been 16.
Two of them were convicted in Duval County. They were Mark Asay (2017) and Gary Bowles (2019).
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