In Starke, Florida, a former Marine is poised to face execution for the murder of a young girl over 40 years ago. This execution could mark the 16th carried out under the administration of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, setting a new record.

Bryan Frederick Jennings, now 66, is slated to receive a lethal injection at 6 p.m. on Thursday at Florida State Prison, located near Starke. Jennings was twice convicted and sentenced to death for the 1979 murder in Brevard County, yet both sentences were overturned on appeal. It wasn’t until a third trial in 1986 that the death sentence was affirmed.

The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed Jennings’ final appeal on Wednesday, paving the way for his execution, one of three scheduled for this week.

Court documents reveal that on May 11, 1979, Jennings, then a 20-year-old Marine on leave, removed a screen from the bedroom window of 6-year-old Rebecca Kunash while her parents were nearby in another room.

The trial revealed that Jennings kidnapped the girl, drove her to a canal, and sexually assaulted her. He then brutally swung her to the ground by her legs, fracturing her skull. Ultimately, the child was drowned in the canal, where her body was discovered later that day.

Jennings was arrested a few hours later on a traffic warrant, where investigators found he matched the description of a man seen near the Kunash home when Rebecca disappeared. Shoe prints found at the home matched those Jennings was wearing, his fingerprints were found on the girl’s windowsill, and his clothes and hair were wet.

DeSantis has ordered more executions in a single year than any Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions. After Jennings, executions this year are scheduled Nov. 20 for Richard Barry Randolph and Dec. 9 for Mark Allen Geralds, which would bring the year’s total so far to 18.

At a recent news conference, DeSantis explained the unprecedented number of executions by saying his goal is to bring justice to victim families who have waited decades for the death sentences to be carried out.

“Some of these crimes were committed in the ’80s,” DeSantis said. “Justice delayed is justice denied. I felt I owed it to them to make sure this ran very smoothly. If I honestly through someone was innocent, I would not pull the trigger.”

Jennings has filed numerous appeals in state and federal courts, most recently contending that he went months without a lawyer prior to DeSantis signing his death warrant in violation of his right to counsel. His current attorneys also say Jennings has improperly not had a clemency hearing since 1988.

An anti-capital punishment group, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, sought U.S. Supreme Court review of the issues and what it called the politicization of the process.

“Florida’s death penalty system has become unrecognizable from the one the law promises,” said Maria DeLiberato, legal and policy director for the group. “Bryan Jennings was left without a state court lawyer for years, denied a clemency review in this century, and then selected for execution because of favorable political timing.”

In addition to the murder conviction, Jennings was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary.

In Oklahoma, Tremane Wood was scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Thursday. In South Carolina, Stephen Bryant was scheduled to die by firing squad on Friday.

A total of 41 people have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S., and at least 18, including Jennings, Wood and Bryant, were scheduled to be put to death during the remainder of 2025 and next year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Florida’s lethal injections are carried out with a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the state Department of Corrections.