A Florida man convicted of murdering a husband and wife during a fishing trip at a remote farm while the couple’s toddler looked on is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday evening in the state’s first execution this year.

The execution of 64-year-old James Dennis Ford is set to take place at Florida State Prison under a death warrant signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in January. It is the first execution scheduled in Florida this year after one execution in the state in 2024 and six in 2023.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied Ford’s final appeal Wednesday without comment.

Ford was convicted by a jury of murdering Gregory Malnory, 25, and 26-year-old Kimberly Malnory during a fishing outing in 1997 at a remote sod farm in southwest Florida. Ford and Gregory Malnory were coworkers at the Charlotte County farm, court records show.

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 the crime scene was discovered by workers. Investigators said she was found covered in her mother’s blood and suffering from numerous mosquito and other insect bites.

The daughter, Maranda Malnory, recently told Fort Myers television station WBBH that she had no recollection of what happened and only remembers her parents through photos and the memories of others.

Court documents say Ford attacked Gregory Malnory after the group arrived to go fishing, shooting him in the head with a .22-caliber rifle, beating him with an axe-like blunt instrument and finally slitting his throat. Kimberly Malnory was beaten, raped and then shot with the same rifle, authorities say.

Ford initially told investigators that the Malnorys were alive when he left them to go hunting, suggesting someone else killed them. Prosecutors said in a court filing that there was “overwhelming proof that Ford was responsible for the murders and the rape.”

The rifle was found later in a ditch near where Ford’s truck had run out of gas and prosecutors presented DNA evidence at his trial connecting him to both slayings. The jury voted 11-1 to recommend the death penalty in the killings, to which the trial judge agreed.

Also Thursday, a man in Texas who murdered his strip club manager and another man, then later prompted a massive lockdown of the state prison system, was scheduled to be executed in Texas.

Ford’s lawyers have filed numerous appeals since his sentence was imposed, none successful. Most recently the Florida Supreme Court rejected claims that his IQ of about 65 at the time of the murders put him in an intellectually disabled category with a mental age then of about 14 — therefore ineligible for execution, court documents show.

The court noted that only defendants whose chronological age was under 18 at the time of a crime can be ineligible for the death penalty “and because Ford was 36 at the time of the murders, it is impossible for him to demonstrate that he falls within the ages of exemption.”

It’s not clear from court records why these killings happened. Part of Ford’s defense was that he suffered from abuse as a child and became an alcoholic like his father, drinking about a case of beer a day along with liquor. He also suffered from untreated diabetes, sometimes leading to blackouts and erratic behavior.

Besides the death penalty, Ford was also convicted of sexual battery with a firearm and child abuse.

If carried out as scheduled, Ford’s execution would be the first in Florida in 2025. One person was put to death in 2024, down from six in 2023, when DeSantis was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination. During the previous three years, the governor didn’t sign off on any executions.

The Death Penalty Information Center said Florida uses a three-drug cocktail for its lethal injection: a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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Vance laid a wreath with a red, white and blue ribbon stenciled with “We remember” and “United States of America” embossed in gold lettering at a large sculpture known as the International Monument. Inaugurated in 1968, the monument was designed by Nandor Glid, who was persecuted as a Jew by the Nazis in his home country Yugoslavia and joined the resistance to Nazi occupation forces.

On Friday, Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are set to sit down with Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. They’ll discuss Trump’s intensifying push for Ukraine and Russia to begin negotiations to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

Talk of the current conflict followed Vance getting a firsthand look at the memorial demonstrating Nazis’ World War II-era atrocities and the U.S. and Western allies’ slowness to take decisive action to confront Adolf Hitler and the rise of his violent nationalist ideology.

Dachau was established in 1933, the year Hitler took power, as one of the first concentration camps. More than 200,000 people from across Europe were held at the camp, and more than 40,000 prisoners died there in horrendous conditions. U.S. soldiers completed the liberation on April 29, 1945.

Vance, a Republican, is on a five-day visit to France and Germany, his first overseas travel since becoming vice president last month.

The moment at Dachau gave Vance a chance to reflect on the scourges of war just as Trump is ratcheting up his efforts to end the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Trump on Wednesday spoke separately with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy. Trump said that he and Putin agreed it was time to “start negotiations immediately” to end the war.

And, as Trump announced his agreement on negotiations with Putin, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that NATO membership for Ukraine was unrealistic and suggested Kyiv should abandon hopes of winning all its territory back from Russia and instead prepare for a negotiated peace settlement to be backed up by international troops.

Trump subsequently said he thought that analysis was correct, and he was noncommittal about if Ukraine should be an equal partner if the U.S. and Russia engage in more substantive negotiations to end the war on its soil.

Besides his talks with Zelenskyy, Vance is scheduled to deliver a Friday address to the security conference. The war in Europe and NATO members’ defense spending are expected to be front and center for the world leaders gathering in Munich.

Vance, like Trump, has been a sharp critic of U.S. allies’ spending what the administration deems too little on their defense budgets.

“The Trump administration has been clear that we care a lot about Europe,” Vance said during a meeting this week with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “But we also want to make sure that we’re engaged in a security partnership that’s both good for Europe and the United States.”

Over nearly three years of war, 50 countries, known as the Ukraine Contact Group, have collectively provided Ukraine with more than $126 billion in weapons and military assistance, including more than $66.5 billion from the U.S., which has served as chair of the group since its creation.

Trump in his 2024 campaign derided the enormous amount of U.S. military aid poured into Ukraine and vowed to end the conflict within 24 hours of returning to the White House.

Since his November election victory over Democrat Kamala Harris, Trump and his advisers have dialed back on their boldest timelines and set a goal of ending the war in about six months.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.