A 64-year-old Florida man convicted of killing a couple at a remote farm in an attack witnessed by their young daughter was executed on Thursday, marking the state’s first this year. According to The Independent, James Dennis Ford was pronounced dead at 6:19 pm, after being given lethal injection drugs at the Florida State Prison. He was convicted of the murders of Gregory Malnory, 25, and his wife Kimberly, 26. Both were brutally slain on a 1997 fishing trip in front of their 23-month-old daughter. 

According to the outlet, Ford shot Gregory Malnory in the head with a .22-caliber rifle, bludgeoned him, and slit his throat, then raped, beat, and shot Kimberly Malnory. The couple’s daughter, Maranda Malnory, was left behind as Ford fled the scene. She was found nearly a day later dehydrated and covered in insect bites by an employee of a nearby sod farm.

Ms Malnory, now an adult, said she has little recollection of the killings, but grieves her parents nonetheless. “I told one of my grandmas the other day you grieve the people you knew,” she said, adding, “But I grieve what could have been.”

Both the US Supreme Court and Florida Supreme Court rejected appeals from Ford ahead of the execution. His lawyers reportedly argued that while Ford was 36 at the time of the murders, he had a mental age of 14, and diabetes-related symptoms that caused him to black out and act erratically.

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Officials said that on the day of execution, Ford woke up at 3:30 am, received three family visitors, and later consumed a final meal of steak, macaroni and cheese, fried okra, sweet potato, pumpkin pie, and sweet tea. Ford had nothing to say to about 25 witnesses present as he lay strapped on a gurney, officials said. 

Notably, Ford was the first execution in the state this year, and the fourth in the United States. On Thursday, the state of Texas also executed Richard Lee Tabler, who officials say killed four people in the city of Killeen in 2004.