This story contains details about a disturbing crime against a child. Discretion is advised.
A former Marine who raped and killed a 6-year-old girl after kidnapping her from her bedroom in 1979 has become the 16th inmate executed in Florida this year, double the state's previous record.
Bryan Jennings, 66, was executed by lethal injection at 6:20 p.m. ET on Thursday, Nov. 13, for the murder of 6-year-old Becky Kunash, a gregarious first-grader whose body was found naked and battered in a canal just a half-mile from her home on Merritt Island, just off the east coast of Florida.
Jennings was going to be the second man executed in the U.S. on Thursday, but Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt granted clemency to Tremane Wood just hours before it was supposed to be carried out.
Jennings is the 42nd inmate put to death in the U.S. this year, a number that hasn't been seen since 2012.
